An international team of researchers–led by Moroccan Professor Abderrazak El Albani from the University of Poitiers, in conjunction with the Hassan II Academy of Sciences and Technologies–discovered that microbial communities dating from 571 million years ago thrived in harsh environmental conditions under the hydrothermal influence in Morocco’s Anti-Atlas.
These communities endured high temperatures and toxic arsenic concentrations, thus enabling them to evolve and survive.
The study, published in the June edition of the Scientific Report-Nature Publishing Group magazine, noted the effects of multiple environmental pressures in regulating these early communities of microorganisms at the temporal and spatial levels, based on the results of geochemical analysis.
The bacteriological deposits studied in the Amane Tazgart area are rare, well-preserved, and carbonate-rich deposits.
The data indicate a spatial and temporal sequence in ecosystem regulation associated with the evolution of water chemistry in a volcanic lake.
This system is highlighted by the presence of a thermophilic microbial community that lives in an anoxic environment with highly toxic concentrations of arsenic–in a cold and dry climate in the lower part of the sequence–while a community of microorganisms lives in the upper part of the sequence, a community that lives in a system fully oxygenated containing fresh-to-brackish water in a hot and humid climate.
The site serves as a model in understanding how well organisms are able to adapt to their environment–particularly with respect to how their environment effects their resilience–while also providing insight into the possibility of life on other planets such as Mars.