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Removal of Exogenous Materials from the Outer Portion of Frozen Cores to Investigate the Ancient Biological Communities Harbored Inside
Published on: July 3, 2016
[The possible contribution of late pleistocene biota to biodiversity in present permafrost zone]
S V Gubin1, S V Maksimovich, S P Davydov
1Institute of Physical-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science, Russian Academy of Science, 142290 Puschino, Moscow Region, Russia. gubin@issp.serpukhov.su
Abstract:
During the last decade a wide range of biological objects, which have preserved their viability for tens and hundreds of thousands of years, was found in the samples of permafrost sediments from North-East Eurasia. Among them are bacteria, fungi, algae, moss spores, seeds of higher plants, protists. Along with physiological mechanisms of cryoconservation and constant low temperature of great importance for long-term preservation of biological objects in permafrost layers are ways of burying the organisms and conditions that prevail before the transition of sediments to the permafrost state. The analysis of viability showed by preserved biological objects gives reasons to suppose that some representatives of Pleistocene biota buried in permafrost thickness may contribute to the biodiversity of present cryolite zone.
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