Long-term preservation of microbial ecosystems in permafrost

Abstract

It has been established that significant numbers (up to 10 million cells per gram of sample) of living microorganisms of various ecological and morphological groups have been preserved under permafrost conditions, at temperatures ranging from −9 to −13°C and depths of up to 100 m, for thousands and sometimes millions of years. Preserved since the formation of permafrost in sand-clay sediments of the Pliocene-Quaternary period and in paleosols and peats buried among them, these cells are the only living organisms that have survived for a geologically significant period of time. The complexity of the microbial community preserved varies with the age of the permafrost. Eukaryotes are found only in Holocene sediments; while prokaryotes are found to greater ages, i.e., Pliocene and Pleistocene. The diversity of microorganisms decreases with increasing age of sediments, and as a result cocci and corynebacteria are predominant. Enzyme activity (catalase and hydrolytic enzymes) and photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll and pheophytin have also been detected in permafrost sediments. These results permit us to outline some approaches to the search for traces of life in the permafrost of Martian sediments by borehole core sampling. It is in the deep horizons (and not on the planet surface), isolated by permafrost from the external conditions, that results similar to those obtained on Earth can be expected.