Berkeley Lab Team Reveals How Desert Cyanobacteria Awaken to
Rainfall Then Resume Their Sleep
They lie dormant for years, but at the first sign of
favorable conditions they awaken. This sounds like the tagline for a science
fiction movie, but it describes the amazing life-cycles of microbial organisms
that form the biological soil crusts (BSCs) of Earth’s deserts. Now a research
team with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has reported a unique molecular-level analysis of a
BSC cyanobacterium responding to the wetting and drying of its environment. The
results hold implications for land management, improved climate change models,
and a better understanding of carbon cycling in soil microbial communities and
how changes in global temperatures impact Earth’s deserts.