Livin' Life to the Extremophile: Biodiversity (Part 4)

So, to quickly recap. In the last 3 days we have traveled several miles below to the Antarctic ice shelf to see what’s happening down there. We’ve visited the deep and mysterious cave systems of Romania and Mexico. We’ve even braved the icy cold depths of the Marianas Trench and stared through the looking glass at planets a billion miles away! What else is there to cover?

The wildlife of course.

You didn’t think I was just going to leave you hanging did you?! To wrap up our spotlight on Extremophiles and their unique habitats, it seems fitting that we spend some time talking about the locals. Here are some of the most bizarre creatures our planet has to offer, and what it means to the future of exploration.

(Fig. 1) The Olm, or Proteus. Note the lack of eyes and pigmentation

this is due to its habitat where there is almost no light

The Caves

What a strange looking creature right? That little guy picture above is called the Olm, or the Proteus, and like the American mudpuppy, it’s one of a kind. It is the only cave-dwelling Chordate that we are aware of at the time of this writing, and it’s not just his bizarre looks that set him apart from the rest.

Dubbed “Human Fish” in Slovenian by the local population this strange amphibian evolved in the caves below Slovenia for centuries. It’s noted in the 1860s by explorers but didn’t become a creature of study until most recently. It has three toes on its front feet and two on the back. Why? Reduction. See, when Mother Nature decides a creature no longer needs something to survive; it removes them in favor of something more necessary.

Like eyes for instance.

Because the Olm is primarily aquatic and lives in the perpetual blackness of underground cave systems the eyes have regressed over time, leaving the sockets covered in a layer of skin. Essentially the Proteus is blind but it still retains sensitivity to light. It has rudimentary lungs but these play second fiddle to the brightly colored red gills he sports like flowers on either side of his head. The reason these gills are so vibrant is because of the lack of pigmentation in the little guy’s skin. Because the oxygen rich blood is red in those areas, and the skin is practically transparent, you can see the bright coloration clearly.

But like a superhero this little guy sure can hear! Its other senses have strongly developed over time, making up for its lack of sight. The Olm can live for decades without food, sitting motionless on the floor of its watery home, but unlike other aquatic animals that exhibit this kind of behavior, the Olm can take off at blinding speeds at a moment’s notice whereas other creature’s out there that slow down their metabolic functions are more slow-moving.

So is this guy an Extremophile? I’d say so. While it doesn’t really live in battery acid water or null-oxygen environments, its ability to survive up to ten years on the lipids and sugars it manufactures in its liver I’d say put it there.

(Fig. 2) The glow-worms deadly web traps and the bioluminescent tail-

light of a glow-worm in a New Zealand cave

See that neat little light glowing there? Thought so. Ya, that’s the New Zealand Glow Worm, that crazy little guy sure is bright isn’t he? Bioluminescence, a process by which an organism exhibits light through production of a chemical in an organ, isn’t extremely uncommon in extremophiles. It makes sense when you think about it, most of these guys live in really dark environments, so it doesn’t hurt to have a lamp sometimes.

See those strings with what appear to be little beads of water accumulated on them? Those aren’t strings, per se. They’re actually traps! The glow worm is carnivorous. It traps other insects in the webs, like a spider’s actually, and then it sucks their internal organs out via chemicals that cause their prey to liquefy. Gnarly little fellas aren’t they? But it doesn’t stop there; there are more files on this extremophile.

See, the glow worm is a larval stage, and they’re kind of dumb. With their over-territorial nature and lack of distinction they will actually cannibalize each other if one roams into another’s territory. What’s even worse, when the fly hatches from the larval form, it will often follow the lights of its larval brothers, flying right into its own traps to be consumed. As I said, not very bright.

In its glowy worm stage of gestation the creature only has one goal. Eat and convert that food into proteins. Eventually, when it has consumed enough it will cocoon itself, much like a butterfly, that pupa eventually becomes the fly.

From the 31 unknown species they uncovered in Movile’s chemosynthesis based cave to the strange and bizarre blind fish the villagers of Villa Luz depend on every year there is peculiar life all around us. Next let’s see what they discovered when they ventured down into the depths of the Ocean.

The Vents

For the longest time scientists believed that the sun was the ultimate catalyst for life on Earth. After all, it powered the microbes and the plants via photosynthetic rays. This in turn allowed the plants to turn Carbon Dioxide into useful oxygen for us, in turn creating the very atmosphere we need to survive. The sun is pretty important, so it makes sense that we didn’t think life could exist without it.

This heliocentric view was nice, I mean, it wrapped everything up in a nice neat little ball for scientists everywhere, the problem? It was wrong. Yes, the sun is necessary for life on Earth to exist and without it we certainly wouldn’t be here but it’s not vital for all life. Life just needs energy, where it obtains that source of energy can be a testament to the true sustainability of life. What ALVIN discovered in the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the 70’s is still being heavily researched by scientists today, but what made this hardy ecosystem able to adapt to the extreme conditions found at the depths of the oceans?

(Fig. 3) Microbial Polyextremophile life around volcanic vents.

Marianas Trench

Piezophile, Thermophile, Extremophile, Polyextremophile, all these terms apply to this dense microbial mat covering hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the oceans. At the extreme depths of the trench the pressure is so high that if you were to try to swim down without a specially developed pressurized suit you would most assuredly be doomed to implode. Our bodies are not capable of producing the external pressure to survive at these depths, but these little guys pictured above, and many ichthyologic (fish) species can.

That’s what a Piezophile is. An organism capable of exerting the outward pressure necessary to not be crushed by forces pushing inward on it. But that’s not the only incredible feature of creatures able to live at these depths. The waters down there are usually very dark and cold, leading most predatory species to rely on other senses in order to feed. Also, as I stated earlier the microbes need some kind of energy to feed on as well. So what keeps those mats from drying up and dying out?

Tectonic plates and the core of planet to be exact. See, the bottom of the ocean is littered with what we call hydrothermal vents. These openings in the Earth basically spit out the superheated contents of the core, venting the pressure so our planet doesn’t explode. Naturally the contents have to very hot, but the pressure at these depths keep the water from reaching a vapor form (in other words, boiling point cannot be achieved) but the end result is a superheated area that can sustain the bacteria and other microbial organisms that have learned to adapt to it. The Piezo-Hydro-Chemolithautorophic-Thermophilic guys are so complex they are actually put into a category all their own.

The Polyextremophile, which is an organism exhibiting more than one quality of a standard extremophile. So you see now why these guys are still under such heavy study? Problems arise however when trying to remove these creatures from their native habitat. Changes in pressure, temperature, and chemical intakes cause specimens to rapidly decay leaving us to study them where they lay. But that’s not really such a bad thing, I mean, who doesn’t like a good swim?

Deep Waters

As we stated above the deep ocean is home to many strange species indeed, these areas that go miles below sea level where no light can reach are intensely cold and heavily pressurized. We used to think life couldn’t exist down there; here are some pictures so show just how wrong we were:

(Fig.4) Deep-sea Angler Fish

(Fig. 5) Deep-sea Angler Fish (Bioluminescent)

(Fig.6) The Mouthless Tube Worm

(Fig. 7) The Yeti Crab

So you see, in places like Lake Vostok we have discovered life (Cryophiles) and in the acidic waters of Yellowstone we have discovered entire ecosystems that we never thought could exist (Acidophiles). That is why it so important we explore every avenue for possible life. This is a growing field, every day we’re discovering more and more about these strange creatures that share our world.

That is what has made NASA so interested in all of this. If we can find life in these places, that survive off the methods they do when everything on our planet right now tells them they don’t even have to, imagine what we’ll find out in space where things have to evolve without the luxury of a lush atmosphere to fall back on evolutionarily. In the coming years the methods we use to cleanly extract and study these organisms will be vital to the coming mission on NASA’s and other space organizations rosters.

Are we going to find life as diverse on these other planets and moons as we do in the most unforgiving environments on our planet? I’m doubtful but I’d never rule it out. If life can evolve from a single-celled organism here then what’s to say it can’t there? The age of Anthropocentricism as at an end, now that we know what we should be looking for.

I don’t care who finds it, I just want it to be found. I firmly believe there is life out there in places like Io, Titan, and Europa. The key to finding it is locked away in these organisms right here that share this world with us. I’m just glad we’re finally opening the lock.

-Ryan Sanders

From “The Far Side” by the brilliant “Gary Larson”

Thank you all so much for reading this four part series I've put together. It took a lot of hard work and research to pull all of this together for you. I hope you've enjoyed it and come back in the future for more exploration into the wonderful world of science. Happy learning everyone!

-Sincerely,

              Ryan Sanders

Livin' Life to the Extremophile: Vostok (Part 1)

Alright, let’s settle one thing right away. When I say “life” in Antarctica I am not referring to human life, Ichthyologic, or even flora. I’m referring the resilient microbial kind. The kind of organisms that, good or bad, are all around you every day. Now I know some of you are like, “well that’s dumb…I thought we were gonna find a new species of fish or something cool like that.” Well I’m sorry if you feel that way, and if you do, you should turn back now, because this article is not written for you. Not that I have the attention of all you single-cellular eccentrics out there lets discuss a little bit about what I mean when I use the term “extremophile.”

Those of you not well versed in microbiology may not be familiar with the term. An Extremophile is a microbe capable of not just living, but thriving in environments we thought previously to be uninhabitable. Thermophiles have been discovered loving life in Yellowstone’s geysers, hyper-thermophiles have even been discovered in the depths of the ocean living along the vents of the ocean floor. Temperatures here would be insanely high, but the extreme pressure keeps the water from being able to boil by inhibiting vapor formation. These deep-water thermophiles survive off of super dense methane and other elements they can scrounge. The extreme heat is actually necessary to their survival, keeping the membranes loose so as to be able to stimulate reproduction.

In short…cool stuff.

It’s not nearly as cool as the thought of finding even more new life on our very own planet, especially in an environment as unforgiving as the frigid wasteland of Antarctica. It was here that the coldest temperature on Earth was ever recorded in the early 80s. (A whopping -89.2 degrees Celsius. That’s -128 degrees Fahrenheit for perspective. That’s ****ing cold!!!) For an organism to survive here, it would have to be extremely hardy. Hence the name, extremophile. A soldier of the microbial world if you will.

That’s why Lake Vostok has had many skeptics over the decades since its discovery. Many scientists (very reputable ones at that) have long since thought that because of the extreme temperatures on the surface, no life could exist below the two miles of ice separating Vostok Station from one of the last untouched bastions of pristine life on this planet. But then again, Lake Vostok itself came under criticism. In the beginning, when Vostok Station was built in 1957, they didn’t even know it was there.

A Cold History

Vostok Station is located 1,300 km inland. That’s a pretty remote hike for supplies, but this was essential to their research. Because of its closeness to the south geomagnetic pole it made it perfect for magnetosphere observation. It operated year round for 37 years and was temporarily shut down in 1994. (but we’ll get to why that happened in a later segment.) What really makes it unique is that it was accidentally built directly over the shallow end of Lake Vostok. Hidden beneath researchers for the next 17 years was what could possibly be the missing link to discovering life on another planet!

It wasn't until 1974 when a British flyover found something interesting. Underneath the ice they found mountains, which was to be expected, Antarctica was flash frozen after all, but suddenly there was a break in the mountains and a completely flat surface bounced back to their equipment leading them to only one conclusion…it had to be a lake. Scientists and geologists scoffed at the preposterous assumption. After all, how could a lake exist in such extremely low temperatures? Liquid water in those condition wasn't just improbable, it was impossible.

As humans time and time again prove to each other, it seems nothing is impossible. Not every scientist was convinced that this couldn't happen. Some geologists suggested that tectonic hot-spots underneath Antarctica had caused geothermic heating to occur. If this was the case then it was very likely a lake could exist down there. The heat from the core of the Earth coming up through vents beneath the ice would cause it to melt from the bottom up. After awhile you would have a pool of water, deep as the shifting of the plates beneath it. It would cause a pocket of air to heat up between the water and the ice shelf above. The temperature would be just enough to sustain the ice above from melting any further and to keep the water below from freezing back to solid. Geothermic insulation, sexy.

But that’s one theory. The other theory (and more likely in my opinion), is that the lake itself is over 30 million years old and flash froze over around 10 to 15 million years ago. If that’s the case then it is far more likely that there could be life down there then if the ice had just gradually melted from the bottom up over time. And if life does indeed exist down there, it could be very strange and exotic life. I mean, it would be millions of years old, if it had found a way to adapt to the sudden change in climate and reproduce over that time period we could learn so much more about the birth of this big blue rock we share the surface of.

Still, not everyone was convinced. So there the lake sat, beneath the workers building Vostok station in 1957, below the baffled British Airmen in 1974, until 1991. It would take almost two decades before Jeff Ridley, would break the baffling mystery of what lay miles below the Russian’s feet. Sometimes it just takes a while for technology to catch up.

 

(Fig. 1)

    You can imagine with such incredibly low temperatures that survival would take a dominant role in life at Vostok station. If you thought that, then you are correct.

(Fig. 2)

      As I mentioned before being that it’s so far inland it makes it difficult to get supplies to the station. The perilous journey would be undertaken from Mirny station, an outpost on the coastline of Antarctica. It wasn’t just being resupplied that was an issue either. Extreme cold plays hell with the human bodies complex systems. So how did the scientists keep warm?

Butter.

That’s right. Lots and lots of butter. They’d eat it by the stick. Butter is rich in fat. The cold causes the human body to burn its stores of fat and muscle in order to keep blood pumping through all the vital regions. The colder the weather, the faster your fat burns. With the carbohydrate rich butter and a little bit of vodka, the Russian scientists made the best of their stay at Vostok.

(Fig 1. Lake Vostok, satellite imagery)

(Fig 2. Lake Vostok in relation to Antarctica)

Uh, Houston…What Am I Looking At?

In 1991, working out of London, Jeff Ridley helped launch ERS-1 (European Remote-Sensing Satellite) into orbit and set it to work above Antarctica. What he found astounded him. The original fly over in the 70's was correct, there was in fact a body of water hidden beneath that thick sheet of ice. The massive size of it made it unmistakable. This discovery however raised even more questions than it answered. Now we know it’s there, how did it form? Does it have an external water supply feeding it? How old is it? Does it contain life?

It’s quite possible that it does. But how do they get down to it without contaminating it? That was the ultimate question. But as it turns out, the scientists here at Vostok on Earth weren’t alone…no, I’m not talking about aliens…well, not exactly.

See, NASA took an interest in Lake Vostok possibly containing life, and it wasn’t just because Ridley was using space imagery to identify it and they wanted to get in on the game too. It was because if microbial life was indeed possible in such extreme condition as Lake Vostok, then it could pave the way for programs to help discover the same kind of potential life existing right here in our very own solar system. Jupiter. She has many moons. Each one of them is interesting but because of the Antarctic expedition below the ice sheet, one moon has become of particular fascination. Europa. We’ll discuss that in further detail next time here at “To Infinity and…In Theory”.

Till then, have an extremophile day!

-Ryan Sanders

To Be Continued...On Europa ;)

For further reading on the history of Vostok Station and Lake Vostok, you can follow any of the links below. Happy learning!

-       A 50Minute Documentary on Vostok

-       StrangerDimensions

-       JeffRidley’s report of sub-glacial lake formations (PDF format)

-       More reading on the ERS-1