For decades, scientists have wrestled with rival theories to explain how interactions between species, like competition, influence biodiversity. Tracking microbial life across the planet, researchers from McGill University show that biodiversity does in fact foster further diversity in microbiomes that are initially less diverse. However, diversity rates plateau with increased competition for survival and space in more diverse microbiomes.
Scientists tackle the question of what kinds of life might reside now on the Red Planet, and how we might find it.
Last week NASA convened a visionary meeting in New Mexico to consider a topic critical to astrobiology—whether life currently exists on Mars, and if so, how to detect it. The site of the conference was near the world-renowned Carlsbad Caverns, which attendees got to visit during a mid-conference workshop.
Failure to find active microbes in coldest Antarctic soils has implications for search for life on Mars
Natural Resource Sciences professor Lyle Whyte and postdoctoral fellow Jackie Goordial talk about their research which suggests that it is unlikely that it is unlikely that there is any microbial life to be found on Mars.
By Katherine Gombay, McGill Newsroom
Failure to find active microbes in coldest Antarctic soils has implications for search for life on Mars