Thousands of brand-new microbes found living in the deepest ocean

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-03-07 03:00

Pacific

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Deep sea microbiologists have identified over 7,000 microbe species in the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench, 89% of which had never been seen before. The Chinese researchers collected the microscopic critters in sediment samples on a submarine trip to the deepest point of Earth's oceans, Challenger Deep, which only 9 people had visited before 2020. The microbes had adapted to the extreme high pressure, cold, and lack of nutrients at depths of 6 to 11 km underwater. In a linked editorial, the scientists say the new bugs could hold secrets which help us to solve the problems that we've created through global biodiversity loss on land.

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Journal/
conference: Cell

Research: Link to Paper 1 | Paper 2

Organisation/s: Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

Funder: This work was financially supported by the Na- tional Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 41921006, 92451301, 42106087, and 92251303), the National Key R&D Program of China (grant nos. 2022YFC2805404, 2022YFC2805304, and 2017YFC0306502), the Major Science and Technology Research Project of Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City (grant SKJC-2021-01-001), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDA22040600).

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