How soil microbes survive in harsh desert environments

Prolonged droughts followed by sudden bursts of rainfall – how do desert soil bacteria manage to survive such harsh conditions? This long-debated question has now been answered by an ERC project led by microbiologist Dagmar Woebken at the University of Vienna. The study reveals that desert soil bacteria are highly adapted to survive the rapid environmental changes experienced with each rainfall event. Dr. Dimitri Meier, Department of Ecological Microbiology / BayCEER, played a major part in the study published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications: