Dr. Roberto Anitori
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
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Contact Details: Phone: + 61 2 9850 8221 Email: ranitori@mq.edu.au
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Life on Earth has been found thriving at environmental extremes such as in Antarctic rocks, boiling hot springs, and aquifers buried kilometers below the land surface. We study prokaryotic microbial communities inhabiting such extremes. Using current molecular genetic techniques (particularly 16S ribosomal RNA analysis), we have been analysing the diversity of a number of unique ecosystems. For example, we are the first research group in the world to describe a bacterial and archaeal community living in a radon-rich thermal spring (the Paralana hot spring in South Australia). The presence of radon makes Paralana unique and argues for its suitability as an analogue for ionising radiation environments, which may have been common on the early Earth and Mars. Paralana supports a considerable diversity of Bacteria, with representatives of nine divisions identified. These include Cyanobacteria, - and -Proteobacteria, the Cytophaga-Flavobacterium-Bacteroides (CFB) group, Low G+C Gram-positives, Nitrospira (including both Nitrospira and Thermodesulfovibrio), green non-sulfur bacteria, green sulfur bacteria, and the candidate OP8 and OP12 divisions. In comparison, the hot spring appears to sustain a relatively limited archaeal diversity; the two main groups present are thermophilic crenarchaeotes of the Thermofilum pendens subgroup, and halophilic euryarchaeotes of the Natronococcus amylolyticus subgroup. We also have access to other sites, such as the stromatolites of Shark Bay in Western Australia, and sulfidic volcanic areas of New Zealand.
Last Updated: Jan 30 2006