Astrobiology & Extreme Microbes

Microbial life is awesome in its ability to adapt and live where "normal" life shouldn't. Extremophile microbes exist in various corners of planet Earth's biosphere, including but not limited to the deep-sea and volcanic rocks. Life that exists in the strangest places here on our planet helps to inform Astrobiology topics related to the search for life in the subsurface of Mars, the oceans of icy moons like Enceladus and Europa, and the surface liquid methane pool on Titan.

Selected Published Works

Microbial diversity within basement fluids of the sediment-buried Juan de Fuca Ridge flank

Jungbluth SP, ..., Rappé MS. (2013). Microbial diversity within basement fluids of the sediment-buried Juan de Fuca Ridge flank. The ISME Journal, 7(1), 161–172. https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2012.73

Cryogenic minerals in Hawaiian lava tubes: A geochemical and microbiological exploration

Teehera KB, Jungbluth SP, ..., Schorghofer N. (2018). Cryogenic Minerals in Hawaiian Lava Tubes: A Geochemical and Microbiological Exploration. Geomicrobiology Journal, 35(3), 227–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490451.2017.1362079

Mapping metabolic activity at single cell resolution in intact volcanic fumarole sediment

Marlow JJ, ..., Jungbluth SP, ..., Kallmeyer J. (2020). Mapping metabolic activity at single cell resolution in intact volcanic fumarole sediment. FEMS Microbiology Letters, 367(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/femsle/fnaa031

Dissecting the dominant hot spring microbial populations based on community-wide sampling at single-cell genomic resolution

Bowers, RM, ..., Jungbluth SP, ..., Woyke T. (2022). Dissecting the dominant hot spring microbial populations based on community-wide sampling at single-cell genomic resolution. The ISME Journal, 16(5), 1337–1347. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-021-01178-4