A new study has shown that on the island of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, near the Kingdom of Tonga, there lived
It is noteworthy that the island itself appeared in the Pacificocean due to volcanic activity in 2014 and 2015. Its short seven-year existence gave scientists a rare opportunity to study how life evolves on new landmasses. But last year's eruption destroyed both the island itself and the organisms that lived there.
According to a new study, scientists are stronglywere surprised at what they found. Instead of the families of bacteria they expected to colonize the island first, biologists found a strange group of microbes "from deep underground." They published their findings in the journal mBio.
For the study, scientists collected 32 soil samples from various surfaces without vegetation, from sea level to the top of the island's crater, 120 m high.
“We didn’t see whatexpected,” explains Nick Dragon, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado. “Instead of cyanobacteria, the typical early colonizers, we found a unique group of bacteria that metabolize sulfur and atmospheric gases.”
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