Microbe May Push Photosynthesis Into Deep Water

Microbe May Push Photosynthesis Into Deep Water

MARINE BIOLOGY:
Microbe May Push Photosynthesis Into Deep Water
John Bohannon
Science, Vol 308, Issue 5730, 1855 , 24 June 2005


The announcement this week of a bacterium that appears to derive energy from light despite living in the inky depths of an ocean threatens to overthrow the dogma that photosynthesis depends on the sun. The microbe may also offer clues about life on early Earth--or on other planets.

Not everyone is convinced yet that the bacterium, discovered in 2003, is a natural resident of the deep sea. But if true, it could be a crucial piece of the puzzle of how photo-synthesis evolved. "The results break new ground and are indeed surprising," says Bob Buchanan, a microbiologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Since their discovery in 1977, deep-sea hydrothermal vents have offered up a surprising menagerie, including 2-meter tubeworms and eyeless crabs, that thrives near the caustic 350ºC effluent that burps out. In the late 1980s, Cindy Van Dover, a marine biologist at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, found a vent-dwelling eyeless shrimp with a light-sensitive patch on its back. Because of the superheated water, vents glow with infrared radiation, but the shrimp's light-gathering pigments seemed geared for much higher frequencies of light.

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http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/308/5730/1855?etoc
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