The Role of Microbial Dormancy as an Ecological and Biogeochemical Regulator on Earth

Microbes drive and regulate virtually all major elemental cycles on Earth, impacting global redox and climate. We think that microbial life in the cryosphere cannot survive without dormancy – which is a temporary, adaptive state of reduced metabolic activity for microorganisms. However, we lack fundamental knowledge about dormancy among life in Earth’s frozen extremes, and how microbes use dormancy to survive in the cryosphere. SIESTA will constrain the activity and dormancy of microbes across the cryosphere by sampling and carrying out state of the art activity measurements across various Arctic and Antarctic cryosphere and glacier habitats. We aim to reveal how organisms tolerate the extreme environments they encounter. We will scale this knowledge using ecological and biogeochemical models, with resources and expertise from the recently funded ERC Starting Grant (SIESTA), to constrain how dormancy affects ecological and biogeochemical processes. This knowledge could not be more urgent as the world continues to warm and our frozen landscapes are increasingly altered, threatening the unique ecosystems they harbour.