The Atacama Desert is located in the western Andes and covers an area of approximately 40,000 square miles. With the exception of the polar deserts, it is the driest place on Earth.
Because some areas of the Atacama region have not had rain in decades, few mammals are able to adapt to these extremely harsh conditions. If there are no animals in the area, it does not mean that there is no life there. The soil itself contains important biomarkers, such as the biological crusts of the American Southwest.
Researchers from the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) relied on modern technologies such as artificial intelligence to study the microbial ecosystem of El Yunque Valley, the driest and driest region of the Atacama Desert.
Since we are now in the era of artificial intelligence, researchers, especially in the medical field, are using it to validate millions of candidate compounds to determine which ones are effective against superbugs and prevent them. These are strains of bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi that are resistant to most antibiotics. When training the artificial intelligence model, they relied on the chemical structure of thousands of known antibiotics and their success and failure against bacteria in the laboratory. The same applies to the German Geoscience Research Center, where researchers are running and training artificial intelligence models to identify and classify different soil types, facilitating the process of discovering soil structure and properties quickly and efficiently.
Previous research focused on just one meter of soil depth in El Yunque Valley and showed that the near-surface soil layer provides protection for microorganisms from the sun's ultraviolet rays while providing enough water to survive.
A new specialized molecular DNA analysis method can recover DNA inside and outside cells from the same sediment sample, according to a study published in the journal PNAS Nexus. This method helps researchers understand whether microorganisms living deep in the El Yunque Valley soil are active or dormant. After purifying the DNA from the samples using centrifuges and ultra-fine filters, they were able to determine which species the microbial genome they found belonged to.
At a depth of 80 cm below the soil surface, researchers discovered bacteria from the phylum Firmicutes. But beyond this depth, the number of meridians decreases dramatically, indicating that the salt concentration is high and the water is very scarce, making it difficult for meridians to survive.
Soil samples taken from a depth of two meters revealed the presence of bacteria from the Actinobacteria phylum, a treasure trove of bioactive compounds essential to large ecosystems and even the pharmaceutical industry.
In a press release issued by the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ), the researchers hypothesize that actinomycetes can survive at this depth thanks to the presence of gypsum or gypsum algae.
Scientists have long wondered about the ability of bacteria to dry gypsum and turn it into the mineral anhydrite. It is a calcium mineral with the chemical name anhydrous calcium sulphate and stores water in gypsum. The drying process of plaster typically requires temperatures up to 85°C. However, the team believes that the high concentration of salt and extreme temperatures in the Atacama Desert make this process entirely possible.