New preprint from our lab
In incubations originated from the sediments of a ferruginous, early Earth analogue lake, we were surprised to discover that the interspecies association between Youngiibacter and Methanothrix was strictly dependent on conductive particles. Here is a link to our paper. The implication of this study is that mineral-syntrophy could be the relic of ancestral associations between protocells splitting metabolic tasks, prior to the evolution of a complex EET-apparatus required for today’s interspecies associations.
