Diverse Communities of Microbes Found in Yucatán’s Underwater Caves

A research team from Northwestern University, alongside a team of professional underwater cave divers, just created the most complete map of the diverse microbial communities found in a lengthy submerged aquifer system in the Yucatán Peninsula. They discovered that the system has a unique microbiome that is separated into neat neighborhoods and is markedly different than the nearby sea.

An underwater pool located inside a cave in the Yucatán Peninsula. Credit: Alex Person on Unsplash.

What is the Yucatán aquifer system?

The Yucatán Peninsula is home to the largest karst aquifer system on Earth. The extensive tunnels form an underwater labyrinth that researchers have been unable to study in depth until now. The entire aquifer system spans 165,000 square kilometers across México, Guatemala, and Belize.

Over time, the Yucatán aquifer has been reshaped by many tectonic events. The Peninsula is also home to the Chicxulub crater, thought to have been created by the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The crater and aquifer system have been a point of interest for geologists and biologists alike due to its rich history.

Diverse Communities of Microbes

The expansive underwater cave system that is the Yucatán aquifer is home to highly diverse groundwater-dependent…