MSU team lands new scientific discovery

A team of MSU scientists have discovered a diverse microbial community hidden deep in Yellowstone National Park. The microorganisms were found in a high elevation hot springs more than 10 miles into the backcountry. The sapphire blue hot springs pool, named Smoke Jumper 3, or SJ3, sits 8,600 feet above sea level along the continental divide.

According to Dan Colman, Ph.D., MSU assistant research professor of microbiology and immunology, the geochemical structure of the thermal pools in the area of the SJ3 pool is the reason for the diverse array of life, which are due to volcanic gases rising from beneath the surface and mixing with rainwater and snowmelt. A large correlation between the abundance of volcanic gases and high amounts of diversity can be seen in the hot springs.

The SJ3 hot springs contains more biodiversity in one nickel-size sample of water than all the plant and animal species combined throughout the rest of Yellowstone. The organisms present in the pool were bacteria and archaea, two of the three domains of life. Eukaryotic organisms, the other domain of life which houses all plants and animals, were not present in the hot springs. Extremely high temperatures in hot springs are only conducive for habitation by bacteria and archaea. Fewer than half of the microbes discovered in SJ3 had been seen before in thermal pools. The discovery of new microbial life plays a large role in determining the conditions for early life on earth and learning more about potential life on other planets.

Yellowstone is home to more than 14,000 hot springs and thermal pools, but researchers were focused on SJ3 due to its high levels of hydrogen and volcanic gases. The organisms in SJ3 rely on energy from chemicals rather than light, making them unique from other organisms seen in thermal pools in Yellowstone.

A scientific paper explaining the discoveries at the SJ3 hot springs was published by MSU on Feb. 8 in the Journal of Communications. The paper was authored by Colman, as well as associate professor Eric Boyd and doctoral student Melody Lindsey. Colman, Boyd and Lindsey are in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, part of the College of Agriculture and the College of Letters and Science. The paper not only outlines the scientific discovery made at SJ3 but also discusses the conditions that allowed for such diversity in the hot springs.