Swansong biospheres: Refuges for life and novel microbial biospheres on terrestrial planets near the end of their habitable lifetimes

International Journal of Astrobiology

Volumn 12, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 99-112

  O'Malley James, Jack T ^a   Greaves, Jane S ^a   Raven, John A ^b   Cockell, Charles S ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS   (United Kingdom)

^b SCOTTISH CROP RESEARCH INSTITUTE   (United Kingdom)

^c UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Biosignatures; Climate; Earth; Exoplanets; Habitability; Solar evolution

Indexed keywords

BIOSPHERE; FUTURE PROSPECT; HABITAT STRUCTURE; MICROBIAL ACTIVITY; SOLAR SYSTEM;

EID: 84876270062     PISSN: 14735504     EISSN: 14753006     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S147355041200047X     Document Type: Article

References (110)

1. Allan, R. P. (2012). The role of water vapour in Earth's energy flows. Surv. Geophys. 33, 557-564.
2. Aráujo, M. B. , Thuiller, W. & Pearson, R. G. (2006). Climate warming and the decline of amphibians and reptiles in Europe. J. Biogeogr. 33, 1712-1728.
3. Bach, W. & Edwards, K. J. (2003). Iron and sulfide oxidation within the basaltic ocean crust: Implications for chemolithoautotrophic microbial biomass production. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 67, 3871-3887.
4. Baker, E. T. & German, C. R. (2004). On the global distribution of hydrothermal vent fields. Geophys. Monogr. Ser. 148, 245-266.
5. Bar-Even, A. , Noor, E. , Lewis, N. E. & Milo, R. (2010). Design and analysis of synthetic carbon fixation pathways. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 107, 8889-8894.
6. Bar-Even, A. , Noor, E. & Mil, R. (2012). A survey of carbon fixation pathways through a quantitative lens. J. Exp. Bot. 63, 2325-2342.
7. Barnes, R. , Mullins, K. , Goldblatt, C. , Meadows, V. S. , Kasting, J. F. & Heller, R. (2012). Tidal Venuses: triggering a climate catastrophe via tidal heating. Preprint, arXiv:1203. 5104v1.
8. Beatty, J. T. , Oevrmann, J. , Lince, M. T. , Manske, A. K. , Lang, A. S. , Blankenship, R. E. , Van Dover, C. L. , Martinson, T. A. & Plumley, F. G. (2005). An obligately photosynthetic bacterial anaerobe from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 102, 9306-9310.
9. Beaty, D. et al. (2006). Unpublished white paper, 76 p, posted June 2006 by the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) at http://mepag. jpl. nasa. gov/reports/index. html.
10. Bell, E. M. (2012). Life at Extremes: Environments, Organisms and Strategies for Survival. CABI, Oxfordshire, UK.
11. Birmingham, B. C. & Colman, B. (1979). Measurement of carbon dioxide compensation points of freshwater algae. Plant Physiol. 64, 892-895.
12. Boer, G. J. , Hamilton, K. & Zhu, W. (2004). Climate sensitivity and climate change under strong forcing. Climate Dyn. 24, 685-700.
13. Bohlen, S. R. (1987). Pressure-temperature-time paths and a tectonic model for the evolution of granulites. J. Geol. 95, 617-632.
14. Bonfils, X. et al. (2011). The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets XXXI. The M-dwarf sample. Preprint, arXiv:1111. 5019.
15. Bounama, C. , Franck, S. & von Bloh, W. (2001). The fate of Earth's ocean. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 5, 569-575.
16. Bowers, R. M. , Lauber, C. L. , Wiedinmyer, C. , Hamady, M. , Hallar, A. G. , Fall, R. , Knight, R. & Fierer, N. (2009). Characterization of airborne microbial communities at a high-elevation site and their potential to act as atmospheric ice nuclei. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 75, 5121-5130.
17. Butterfield, N. J. (2000). Bangiomorpha pubescens n. gen. , n. sp. : implications for the evolution of sex, multicellularity, and the mesoproterozoic/neoproterozoic radiation of eukaryotes. Paleobiology 26, 386-404.
18. Caldeira, C. & Kasting, J. F. (1992). The life span of the biosphere revisited. Nature 360, 721-723.
19. Canfield, D. E. (2005). The early history of atmospheric oxygen: homage to Robert M. Garrels. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 33, 1-36.
20. Catanzarite, J. & Shao, M. (2011). The occurrence rate of Earth-analog planets orbiting sun-like stars. Astrophys. J. 738, 151-161.
21. Chivian, D. et al. (2008). Environmental genomics reveals a single-species ecosystem deep within earth. Science 322, 275-278.
22. Clarke, A. & Rothery, P. (2008). Scaling of body temperature in mammals and birds. Funct. Ecol. 22, 58-67.
23. Cockell, C. S. (2003). Impossible Extinction: Natural Catastrophes and the Supremacy of the Microbial World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
24. Dartnell, L. (2011). Biological constraints on habitability. Astron. Geophys. 52, 1. 25-1. 28.
25. DasSarma, S. & DasSarma, P. (2001). Halophiles. In Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester.
26. Dillon, M. E. , Wang, G. & Huey, R. B. (2010). Global metabolic impacts of recent climate warming. Nature 467, 704-707.
27. Edwards, K. J. , Becker, K. & Colwell, F. (2012). The deep, dark energy biosphere: intraterrestrial life on earth. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 40, 551-568.
28. Engel, A. S. , Porter, M. L. , Kinkle, B. K. & Kane, T. C. (2001). Ecological assessment and geological significance of microbial communities from cesspool cave, Virginia. Geomicrobiol. J. 18, 259-274.
29. Falkowski, P. G. , Katz, M. E. , Milligan, A. J. , Fennel, K. , Cramer, B. S. , Aubrey, M. P. , Berner, R. A. , Novacek, M. J. & Zapol, W. M. (2005). The rise of oxygen over the past 205 million years and the evolution of large placental mammals. Science 309, 2202-2204.
30. Ferrera, I. Reysenbach, A-L. (2007). Thermophiles. In Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester.
31. Feulner, G. (2012). The faint young Sun problem. Rev. Geophys. 50: RG2006.
32. Field, C. B. , Behrenfeld, M. J. , Randerson, J. T. & Falkowski, P. (1998). Primary production of the biosphere: integrating terrestrial and oceanic components. Science 281, 237-240.
33. Goldblatt, C. & Watson, J. A. (2012). The Runaway Greenhouse: implications for future climate change, geoengineering and planetary atmospheres. Preprint, arXiv:1201. 1593v1.
34. Gough, D. O. (1981). Solar interior structure and luminosity variations. Solar Phys. 74, 21-34.
35. Howarth, F. G. (1983). Ecology of cave arthropods. Annu. Rev. Etomol. 28, 365-289.
36. Irwin, L. N. & Schulze-Makuch, D. (2011). Cosmic Biology: How Life Could Evolve on Other Worlds? Edited by John Mason. Springer Science+Business Media, New York, NY, USA.
37. Kaltenegger, L. , Traub, W. A. & Jucks, K. W. (2007). Evolution of an Earthlike planet. Astrophys. J. 658, 598-616.
38. Kasting, J. F. (1988). Runaway and moist greenhouse atmospheres and the evolution of earth and Venus. Icarus 74, 472-494.
39. Kasting, J. F. & Grinspoon, D. H. (1991). The faint young sun problem. In The Sun in Time, pp. 447-462. University of Arizona Press, Tuscon, AZ.
40. Kemp, T. S. (2006). The origin of mammalian endothermy: a paradigm for the evolution of complex biological structure. Zool. J. Linnean Soc. 147, 473-488.
41. Kieft, T. L. et al. (2005). Geochemically generated, energy-rich substrates and indigenous microorganisms in deep, ancient groundwater. Geomicrobiol. J. 22, 325-335.
42. Kimura, H. , Mori, K. , Nashimoto, H. , Hattori, S. , Yamada, K. , Koba, K. , Yoshida, N. & Kato, K. (2010). Biomass production and energy source of thermophiles in a Japanese alkaline geothermal pool. Microbes Environ. 12, 480-489.
43. Landis, G. A. (2001). Martian water: are there extant halobacteria on mars? Astrobiology 1, 161-164.
44. Laskar, J. & Gastineau, M. (2009). Existence of collisional trajectories of Mercury, Mars and Venus with the Earth. Nature 459, 817-819.
45. Laskar, J. , Joutel, F. & Robutel, P. (1993). Stabilization of the Earth's obliquity by the Moon. Nature 361, 615-617.
46. Laskar, J. , Correia, A. C. M. , Gastineau, M. , Joutel, F. , Levrard, B. & Robutel, P. (2004). Long term evolution and chaotic diffusion of the insolation quantities of Mars. Icarus 170, 343-364.
47. Leutscher, M. , Jeannin, P. -Y. Haeberli, W. (2005). Ice caves as an indicator of winter climate evolution: a case study from the Jura Mountains. Holocene 15, 982-993.
48. Levenson, B. P. (2011). Planet temperatures with surface cooling parameterized. Adv. Space. Res. 47, 2044-2048.
49. Lin, L-H. , Slater, G. F. , Lollar, B. S. , Lacrampe-Couloume, G. & Onstott, T. C. (2005). The yield and isotopic composition of radiolytic H2, a potential energy source for the deep subsurface biosphere. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 69, 893-903.
50. Lin, L-H. et al. (2006). Long-term sustainability of a high-energy, lowdiversity crustal biome. Science 314, 479-482.
51. Lineweaver, C. H. (2001). An estimate of the age distribution of terrestrial planets in the universe: quantifying metallicity as a selection effect. Icarus 151, 307-313.
52. Lissauer, J. J. , Barnes, J. W. & Chambers, J. E. (2012). Obliquity variations of a moonless Earth. Icarus 217, 77-87.
53. Lorenz, R. D. , Lunine, J. I. , Withers, P. G. & McKay, C. P. (2001). Titan, mars and earth: entropy production by latitudinal heat transport. Geophys. Res. Lett. 28, 415-418.
54. Lynch, R. C. , King, A. J. , Farías, M. E. , Sowell, P. , Vitry, C. & Schmidt, S. K. (2012). The potential for microbial life in the highest elevation (6000 m. a. s. l. ) mineral soils of the Atacama region. J. Geophys. Res. 117, G02028.
55. Maberly, S. C. (1990). Exogenous sources of inorganic carbon for photosynthesis by marine macroalgae. J. Physcol. 26, 439-449.
56. Maberly, S. C. (1996). Diel, episodic and seasonal changes in pH and concentrations of inorganic carbon in a productive lake. Freshw. Biol. 35, 579-598.
57. Margot, J. L. , Campbell, D. B. , Jurgens, R. F. & Slade, M. A. (1999). Topography of the lunar poles from radar interferometry: a survey of cold trap locations. Science 284, 1658-1660.
58. McLean, D. M. (1991). A climate change mammalian population collapse mechanism. In Energy and Environment, eds. Kainlauri, E. , Johansson, A. , Kurki-Suonio, I. & Geshwiler, M. , p. 93-100. ASHRAE, Atlanta, Georgia.
59. McGuffie, K. & Henderson-Sellers, A. (2005). A Climate Modelling Primer, 3rd edn. John Wiley & Sons Ltd. , West Sussex, England.
60. Meadows, A. J. (2007). The Future of the Universe. Springer-Verlag London Limited, London.
61. Mesbah, N. M. & Wiegel, J. (2012). Life under multiple extreme conditions: diversity and physiology of the halophilic alkalithermophile. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 78, 4074-4082.
62. McCollom, T. M. (1999). Methanogenesis as a potential source of chemical energy for primary biomass production by autotrophic organisms in hydrothermal systems on Europa. J. Geophys. Res. 104, 30729-30742.
63. Mojzsis, S. J. , Arrhenius, G. , McKeegan, K. D. , Harrison, T. M. , Nutman, A. P. & Friend, C. R. L. (1996). Evidence for life on earth before 3800 million years ago. Nature 384, 55-59.
64. Myhre, G. , Highwood, E. J. , Shine, K. P. & Stordal, F. (1998). New estimates of radiative forcing due to well mixed greenhouse gases. Geophys. Res. Lett. 25, 2715-2718.
65. Neron de Surgy, O. & Laskar, J. (1997). On the long term evolution of the spin of the Earth. Astron. Astrophys. 318, 975-989.
66. Neukum, G. et al. (2004). Recent and episodic volcanic and glacial activity on mars revealed by the high resolution stereo camera. Nature 432, 971-979.
67. Nixdorf, B. , Krumbeck, H. , Jander, J. & Beulker, C. (2003). Comparison of bacterial and phytoplankton productivity in extremely acidic mining lakes and eutrophic hard water lakes. Acta Oecol. 24, S281-S288.
68. Ohata, T. , Furukawa, T. & Osada, K. (1994). Glacioclimatological study of perennial ice in the Fuji Ice Cave, Japan. Part 2. interannual variation and relation to climate. Arctic Alpine Res. 26, 238-244.
69. Orcutt, B. N. , Sylvan, J. B. , Knab, N. J. & Edwards, K. J. (2011). Microbial ecology of the dark ocean above, at and below the Seafloor. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 75, 361-422.
70. Oren, A. (2009). Microbial diversity. In Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (ELS). John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester
71. Paillard, A. A. (2010). Climate and the orbital parameters of the Earth. C. R. Geosci. 342, 273-285.
72. Parnell, J. , Boyce, A. J. & Blamey, N. J. F. (2010). Follow the methane: the search for a deep biosphere, and the case for sampling serpentinites, on Mars. Int. J. Astrobiol. 9, 193-200.
73. Pavlov, A. A. , Kasting, J. F. , Brown, L. L. , Rages, K. A. & Freedman, F. (2000). Greenhouse Warming by CH4 in the Atmosphere of Early Earth. Geophys. Res. 105, 11981-11990.
74. Pedersen, K. (2000). Exploration of deep intraterrestrial microbial life: current perspectives. FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 185, 9-16.
75. Price, C. (2009). Thunderstorms Lightning and Climate Change. In: eds. Betz, H. D. , Schumann, U. , Laroche, P. Lightning: Principles, Instruments and Applications: Review of Modern Lightning Research. vol. 1.
76. Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Springer, pp. 521-535.
77. Price, C. & Asfur, M. (2006a). Can lightning observations be used as an indicator of upper tropospheric water vapor variability? Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc. 87, 291-298.
78. Rákóczi, F. & Iványi, S. (1999). Water vapour and greenhouse effect. Geofizika 16-17, 65-72.
79. Raven, J. A. & Larkum, A. W. S. (2007). Are there ecological implications from the proposed energetic restrictions on photosynthetic oxygen evolution at high oxygen concentrations? Photosyn. Res. 94, 31-42.
80. Reith, F. (2011). Life in the deep subsurface. Geology 39, 287-288.
81. Ribas, I. , Guinan, E. F. , Gúdel, M. & Audard, M. (2005). Evolution of solar activity over time and effects on planetary atmospheres. I. high-energy irradiances (1-1700 A). Astrophys. J. 622, 680-694.
82. Rosing, M. T. (1999). C-13-depleted carbon microparticles in 3700-Ma seafloor sedimentary rocks from west Greenland. Science 283, 674-676.
83. Rosing, M. T. , Bird, D. K. , Sleep, N. H. & Bjerrum, C. J. (2010). No climate paradox under the faint early Sun. Nature 464, 744-747.
84. Rothschild, L. J. & Mancinelli, R. L. (2001). Life in extreme environments. Nature 409, 1092-1101.
85. Sato, M. & Fukunishi, H. (2005). New evidence for a link between lightning activity and tropical upper cloud coverage. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L12807.
86. Schidlowski, M. (1988). A 3800-million-year isotopic record of life from carbon in sedimentary rocks. Nature 333, 313-318.
87. Schneider, J. (2010). The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia. Available online at http://exoplanet. eu.
88. Scott, B. J. (1994). Cyclic activity in the crater lakes of Waimangu hydrothermal system, New Zealand. Geothermics 23, 555-572.
89. Seager, S. , Schrenk, M. & Bains, W. (2012). An astrophysical view of earthbased metabolic biosignature gases. Astrobiology 12, 61-82.
90. Sekercioglu, C. H. , Schneider, S. H. , Fay, J. P. & Loarie, S. R. (2007). Climate change, elevational range shifts, and bird extinction. Conserv. Biol. 22, 140-150.
91. Sekiguchi, M. , Hayakawa, M. , Nickolaenko, A. P. & Hobara, Y. (2006). Evidence on a link between the intensity of Schumann resonance and global surface temperature. Ann. Geophys. 24, 1809-1817.
92. Smrekar, S. E. , Stofan, E. R. , Mueller, N. , Treiman, A. , Elkins-Tanton, L. , Helbert, J. , Piccioni, G. & Drossart, P. (2010). Recent hotspot volcanism on Venus from VIRTIS emissivity data. Science 328, 605-608.
93. Spiegel, D. S. , Raymond, S. N. , Dressing, C. D. , Scharf, C. A. & Mitchell, J. L. (2010). Generalized milankovitch cycles and long-term climatic habitability. Astrophys. J. 721, 1308-1318.
94. Strother, P. K. , Battison, L. , Brasier, M. D. & Wellman, C. H. (2011). Earth's earliest non-marine eukaryotes. Nature 473, 505-509.
95. Tarter, J. C. et al. (2007). A reappraisal of the habitability of planets around M Dwarf stars. Astrobiology 7, 30-65.
96. Thiermann, F. , Akoumianaki, I. , Hughes, J. A. & Giere, O. (1997). Benthic fauna of a shallow water gaseohydrothermal vent area in the Aegean Sea (Milos, Greece). Marine Biol. 128, 149-159.
97. Tie, X. , Zhang, R. , Brasseur, G. & Lei, W. (2002). Global NOx production by lightning. J. Atmos. Chem 43, 61-74.
98. Tomasella, L. , Marzari, F. & Vanzani, V. (1996). Evolution of the Earth obliquity after the tidal expansion of the Moon orbit. Planet. Space Sci. 44, 427-430.
99. Tuttle, M. D. & Stevenson, D. E. (1977) Variation in the cave environment and its biological implications. In National Cave Management Symp. Proc. , 1977, Adobe Press, Albuquerque, NM, pp. 108-121.
100. Valsami-Jones, E. , Baltatzis, E. , Bailey, E. H. , Boyce, A. J. , Alexander, J. L. , Magganas, A. , Anderson, L. , Waldron, S. & Ragnarsdottir, K. V. (2005). The geochemistry of fluids from an active shallow submarine hydrothermal system: Milos island, Hellenic Volcanic Arc. J. Volcanol. Geotherm. Res. 148, 130-151.
101. Vásquez, M. , Palle, E. & Montañes Rodríguez, P. (2010). The Earth as a Distant Planet, p. 10013. Springer Science+Business Media, New York, NY.
102. Walker, J. C. G. (1991). Feedback processes in the biogeochemical cycles of Carbon. In Scientists on Gaia, eds Schneider, S. H. & Boston, P. J. , pp. 183-190. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
103. Ward, P. D. & Brownlee, D. (2002). The Life and Death of Planet Earth. Times Books, New York.
104. Welsh, W. F. et al. (2012) Transiting circumbinary planets Kepler-34 b and Kepler-35 b. Nature 481, 475-479.
105. Williams, D. M. & Kasting, J. F. (1997). Habitable Planets with High Obliquities. Icarus 129, 254-267.
106. Williams, E. , Mushtak, V. , Rosenfeld, D. , Goodman, S. & Boccippio, D. (2005). Thermodynamic conditions favorable to superlative thunderstorm updraft, mixed phase microphysics and lightning flash rate. Atmos. Res. 76, 288-306.
107. Williams, K. E. , McKay, C. P. , Toon, O. B. & Head, J. W. (2010). Do ice caves exist on Mars? Icarus 209, 358-368.
108. Womack, A. M. , Bohannan, B. J. M. & Green, J. L. (2010). Biodiversity and biogeography of the atmosphere. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 365, 3645-3653.
109. Wood, C. A. (1984). Calderas: a planetary perspective. J. Geophys. Res. 89, 8391-8406.
110. Yoder, J. A. , Chambers, M. J. , Tank, J. L. & Keeney, G. D. (2009). High temperature effects on water loss and survival examining the hardiness of female adults of the spider beetles, Mezium affine and Gibbium aequinoctiale. Journal of Insect Science 9, Article 68.