In Germany, researchers at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich completed a study that shows that in order to survive, microorganisms found deep under the seabed resort to cannibalism and eat each other after they die. Researchers conducted a genetic analysis of the enzymes secreted by resident microbial communities that were found in deep sea drilling sites off Peru’s coast.
William Orsi, professor of geomicrobiology at LMU, said in a news release to Phys.org, “Many of the enzymes synthesized and secreted by fungal cells specifically attack the cell walls of archaea, while many of the extracellular enzymes released by bacteria can degrade the cell walls of fungi. In other words, different classes of microbes apparently cannibalize one another’s carcasses.”