Microbial Ecosystems in Movile Cave: An Environment of Extreme Life

Abstract

Movile Cave, situated in Romania close to the Black Sea, constitutes a distinct and challenging environment for life. Its partially submerged ecosystem depends on chemolithotrophic processes for its energetics, which are fed by a continuous hypogenic inflow of mesothermal waters rich in reduced chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide and methane. We sampled a variety of cave sublocations over the course of three years. Furthermore, in a microcosm experiment, minerals were incubated in the cave waters for one year. Both endemic cave samples and extracts from the minerals were subjected to 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. The sequence data show specific community profiles in the different subenvironments, indicating that specialized prokaryotic communities inhabit the different zones in the cave. Already after one year, the different incubated minerals had been colonized by specific microbial communities, indicating that microbes in Movile Cave can adapt in a relatively short timescale to environmental opportunities in terms of energy and nutrients. Life can thrive, diversify and adapt in remote and isolated subterranean environments such as Movile Cave.