Modelling the liquid-water vein system within polar ice sheets as a potential microbial habitat

Based on the fundamental and distinctive physical properties of polycrystalline ice lh, the chemical and temperature profiles within the polar ice sheets, and the observed selective partitioning of bacteria into liquid water filled veins in the ice, we consider the possibility that microbial life could survive and be sustained within glacial systems. Here, we present a set of modelled vertical profiles of vein diameter, vein chemical concentration, and vein water volume variability across a range of polar ice sheets using their ice core chemical profiles. A sensitivity analysis of VeinsIuIce1.0, the numerical model used in this study shows that the ice grain size and the local borehole temperature are the most significant factors that influence the intergranular liquid vein size and the amount of freeze-concentrated impurities partitioned into the veins respectively. Model results estimate the concentration and characteristics of the chemical broth in the veins to be a potential extremophilic microbial medium. The vein sizes are estimated to vary between 0.3 mu m to 8 mu m across the vertical length of many polar ice sheets and they may contain up to 2 mu L, of liquid water per litre of solid ice. The results suggest that these veins in polar ice sheets could accommodate populations of psychrophilic and hyperacidophilic ultra-small bacteria and in some regions even support the habitation of unicellular eukaryotes. This highlights the importance of understanding the potential impact of englacial microbial metabolism on polar ice core chemical profiles and provides a model for similar extreme habitats elsewhere in the universe

Isoprene enhances leaf cytokinin metabolism and induces early senescence.

●Isoprene, a major biogenic volatile hydrocarbon of climate-relevance, indisputably mitigates abiotic stresses in emitting plants. However functional relevance of constitutive isoprene emission in unstressed plants remains contested. Isoprene and cytokinins (CKs) are synthesised from a common substrate and pathway in chloroplasts. It was postulated that isoprene emission may affect CK-metabolism. ●Using transgenic isoprene-emitting (IE) Arabidopsis and isoprene non-emitting (NE) RNAi grey poplars (paired with respective NE and IE genotypes), the life of individual IE and NE leaves from emergence to abscission was followed under stress-free conditions. We monitored plant growth rate, above-ground developmental phenotype, modelled leaf photosynthetic energy status, quantified the abundance of leaf CKs, analyzed Arabidopsis and poplar leaf transcriptomes by RNA-sequencing in presence and absence of isoprene during leaf senescence. ●Isoprene emission by unstressed leaves enhanced the abundance of CKs (isopentenyl adenine and its precursor) by >200%, significantly upregulated genes coding for CK-synthesis, CK-signaling and CK-degradation, hastened plant development, increased chloroplast metabolic rate, altered photosynthetic energy status, induced early leaf senescence in both Arabidopsis and poplar. IE leaves senesced sooner even in decapitated poplars where source-sink relationships and hormone homeostasis were perturbed. ●Constitutive isoprene emission significantly accelerates CK-led leaf and organismal development and induces early senescence independent of growth constraints. Isoprene emission provides an early-riser evolutionary advantage and shortens lifecycle duration to assist rapid diversification in unstressed emitters

Volatile isoprenoid emissions from plastid to planet

Approximately 1–2% of net primary production by land plants is re-emitted to the atmosphere as isoprene and monoterpenes. These emissions play major roles in atmospheric chemistry and air pollution–climate interactions. Phenomenological models have been developed to predict their emission rates, but limited understanding of the function and regulation of these emissions has led to large uncertainties in model projections of air quality and greenhouse gas concentrations. We synthesize recent advances in diverse fields, from cell physiology to atmospheric remote sensing, and use this information to propose a simple conceptual model of volatile isoprenoid emission based on regulation of metabolism in the chloroplast. This may provide a robust foundation for scaling up emissions from the cellular to the global scale