Lake Enigma, in the Aussie area of Antarctica, is an enigma no more

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-12-03 21:00

Australia; International

CC:0

Lake Enigma, a permanently ice-covered lake in the Australian area of Antarctica, is an enigma no more, as international researchers say it contains an extensive and diverse ecosystem. They found ultra-small bacteria that dominate some parts of the permanently frozen lake, and say this colony of tiny critters reveals new and complex Antarctic lake food webs.

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Journal/
conference: Communications Earth & Environment

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: National Research Council of Italy, Italy

Funder: This study was funded by the National Antarctic Research Program (Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide or PNRA) (grant no. PNRA16_00121), administered by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research. Thermal drilling approaches, used in this study, known as ‘clean hot water drills’, are fully compliantwith the SCARCode ofConduct forSubglacialResearch and nospecific samplingpermitwas required fromthePNRA.Partially, this study was additionally supported by a grant from the FUTURENZYMES Project (Contract 101000327), funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research Program.

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