Inside a Carbon Capture System, Two New Lifeforms are Discovered

While growing microalgae in tanks fed by industrial flue gas – a way to pull CO2 from the air – the team found two entirely new bacterial species, now named Phycocordibacter aenigmaticus and Minusculum obligatum, from a barely-explored branch of life scientists call microbial dark matter. What makes these new species remarkable is that they lack the metabolic machinery to produce their own energy or proteins, and therefore rely entirely on other species for these essential elements. Yet, despite those limits, they dominated the tanks – over 95% of the bacteria in some samples. Finding so many in the tanks raises questions about whether they help or hinder the community’s ability to utilize CO2 from flue gases.

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Scientists Discover Source of Deep Ocean Color

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