Pomona Osmers: A practical guide to building a hot spring

Growing microbial communities that better re-create the natural systems is important to understand life’s multitudinous adaptations in hot springs; which are implicated in early life hypotheses and as model systems for astrobiology. First, we investigated microbial community trends through metadata analysis of bacterial and archaeal relative abundance across 100 communities from 47 springs in 13 countries, statistically demonstrating that changes in microbial communities from alkali-chloride silica springs are dependent on the temperature, pH, and the type of sample collected.

Next, we grew microbial communities in the lab and examined which microbes were retained, as many species are unculturable. Finally, we confirmed through a comparison of microbial structures that the lab grown microbial mats are comparable to those found in natural springs. Overall, we have successfully created a model silicifying microbial system in the lab. </p>