Post by Miguel Ángel Salinas-García

Did you know Arctic bacteria change their "smell" depending on how "salty" they are? Our new study reveals why that matters for a warming Arctic. This is one of my PhD papers, that was published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology last month, just before Christmas! 🎄 In this study, titled "Volatilomic complexity of three Northern Greenland bacterial isolates across a salt gradient", we explored how salinity impacts the production of Microbial Volatile Organic Compounds (MVOCs) (in other words, the "smell") of three novel bacteria isolated from Northern Greenland. These tiny molecules help microbes communicate and compete, and are also important for nutrient cycling. We show that salinity significantly affects MVOC emissions in these Arctic strains. In their native environment, salinity experienced by microbes can swing dramatically depending on temperature, precipitation and snow/ice thawing, processes that are becoming more and more frequent and extreme in a warming Arctic. This work is a step toward understanding how microbial life responds to extreme environments and what that means for nutrient cycling in a rapidly changing Arctic. A huge thank you to my amazing co-authors Kajsa Roslund, Mathias Risom, Anders Priemé and Riikka Rinnan, and to our funders and everyone else at the Section of Microbiology, UCPH and VOLT - Center for Volatile Interactions! 📄 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/ecpGqpNZ