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After 7000 years without light and oxygen in Baltic Sea mud: Researchers bring prehistoric algae back to life

Fully active again even after around 7000 years without light and oxygen in the Baltic Sea sediment: the diatom Skeletonema marinoi.
Fully active again even after around 7000 years without light and oxygen in the Baltic Sea sediment: the diatom Skeletonema marinoi. (Photo: IOW / S. Bolius))

A research team led by the IOW was able to revive dormant stages of algae that sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea almost 7,000 years ago. Despite thousands of years of inactivity in the sediment without light and oxygen, the investigated diatom species regained full viability. The study, recently published in The ISME Journal, was carried out as part of the Leibniz Association-funded collaborative research project PHYTOARK, which aims at a better understanding of the Baltic Sea's future by means of palaeoecological investigations of the Baltic Sea's past.. (Read the original publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/ismejo/wrae252)

 

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