A group from Departamento de Ingeniería Química, Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile, etc. has reported about microbiome in a deep hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8859261/
Extensive and diverse microbial life remains to be discovered at greater soil depths within the hyperarid Atacama Desert. It was found that the moisture content changed from 2 to 11% by depth from (i) surface zone A (0–60 cm), (ii) intermediate zone B (60–220 cm), to (iii) deep zone C (220–340 cm).
The microbial composition in the soil core was dominated by Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes in all studied depth zones. However, community composition varied with soil depth.
In general,
- Firmicutes exhibited a slightly greater detection frequency in surface zone A than in zone C, while it was not detected in zone B.
Within Firmicutes, the occurrence of the families Lachnospiraceae and Bacillaceae was limited to zone A, while Oscillospiraceae and Salisediminibacter incerta sedis occurred only in zone C (wetter conditions). - Similarly, the actinobacterial families had different niches, with Sporichthyaceae being only detected in layers of zones B and C, while Illumatobacteraceae were only present in different layers within zone A.
- The deepest part of the profile was dominated by Proteobacteria, especially by the families Comamonadaceae (330–340 cm) and Marinobacteraceae (320–330 cm).
- The family Sphingomonadaceae of Proteobacteria showed a high abundance in several layers of zone B but a lower abundance in zone C.
- Remarkably, Cyanobacteria of the class Oxyphotobacteria were detected with low prevalence in various samples across the soil profile.