Lake Vostok Appears to be Full of Life

Lake Vostok, buried under a glacier in Antarctica, is so dark, deep and cold that scientists had considered it a possible model for other planets, a place where nothing could live.

However, work by Dr. Scott Rogers, a Bowling Green State University professor of biological sciences, and his colleagues has revealed a surprising variety of life forms living and reproducing in this most extreme of environments. A paper published June 26 in PLOS ONE details the thousands of species they identified through DNA and RNA sequencing.

"The bounds on what is habitable and what is not are changing," Rogers said.

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Not only had most scientists believed Lake Vostok completely inhospitable to life, some thought it might even be sterile.

Far from it, Rogers found. Working with core sections removed from the deep layer of ice that accreted from lake water that froze onto the bottom of the glacier where it meets the lake, Rogers examined ice as clear as diamonds that formed in the great pressure and relatively warm temperatures found at that depth. The team sampled cores from two areas of the lake, the southern main basin and near an embayment on the southwestern end of the lake.

"We found much more complexity than anyone thought," Rogers said. "It really shows the tenacity of life, and how organisms can survive in places where a couple dozen years ago we thought nothing could survive."

By sequencing the DNA and RNA from the accretion ice samples, the team identified thousands of bacteria, including some that are commonly found in the digestive systems of fish, crustaceans and annelid worms, in addition to fungi and two species of archaea, or single-celled organisms that tend to live in extreme environments. Other species they identified are associated with habitats of lake or ocean sediments. Psychrophiles, or organisms that live in extreme cold, were found, along with heat-loving thermophiles, which suggests the presence of hydrothermal vents deep in the lake. Rogers said the presence of marine and freshwater species supports the hypothesis that the lake once was connected to the ocean, and that the freshwater was deposited in the lake by the overriding glacier.

The largest number of species overall was found in the area near the embayment, including many that are common to freshwater environments, as well as marine species, psychrophiles and thermophiles. Numerous others were found that remain unidentified. The embayment appears to contain much of the biological activity in the lake.