ArticleScientific reports2019
Aeolian transport of viable microbial life across the Atacama Desert, Chile: Implications for Mars.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Infectious Diseases Associated with Desert Dust Outbreaks: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Linking Biocrust Architecture and Dispersal: Reproductive Ecology of Lichens of the Grit Crust in the Coastal Atacama Desert.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Article
- Hypothesis on the dust-borne atmospheric transport of Coccidioides, causative fungal pathogen for coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever).Medical mycology · 2026Article
- Molecular Phylogeny of "Chemosensory Proteins" in Bacteria and Arthropods: CSP as an Extremely Ancient Gene.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Article
- An Atacama subsurface tephra layer reveals how life colonized Kenorland in the Neoarchean.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Ultraviolet and biological effective dose observations at Gale Crater, Mars.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Utilizing Martian samples for future planetary exploration-Characterizing hazards and resources.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Review
- Lake morphology and meteorological conditions impact stratification of saline lakes in the Atacama Desert.PloS one · 2025Article
- Sea spray allows for the growth of subaerial microbialites at the driest desert on Earth.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Archaeology meets environmental genomics: implementing sedaDNA in the study of the human past.Archaeological and anthropological sciences · 2024Article
- Article
- Dark microbiome and extremely low organics in Atacama fossil delta unveil Mars life detection limits.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Ecological successions throughout the desiccation of Tirez lagoon (Spain) as an astrobiological time-analog for wet-to-dry transitions on Mars.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Leave no stone unturned: individually adapted xerotolerant Thaumarchaeota sheltered below the boulders of the Atacama Desert hyperarid core.Microbiome · 2021Article
- Diverse Viruses Carrying Genes for Microbial Extremotolerance in the Atacama Desert Hyperarid Soil.mSystems · 2021Article
- Geomicrobiological Heterogeneity of Lithic Habitats in the Extreme Environment of Antarctic Nunataks: A Potential Early Mars Analog.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- Article
- Inhabited subsurface wet smectites in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert as an analog for the search for life on Mars.Scientific reports · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Here we inspect whether microbial life may disperse using dust transported by wind in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, a well-known Mars analog model. By setting a simple experiment across the hyperarid core of the Atacama we found that a number of viable bacteria and fungi are in fact able to traverse the driest and most UV irradiated desert on Earth unscathed using wind-transported dust, particularly in the later afternoon hours. This finding suggests that microbial life on Mars, extant or past, may have similarly benefited from aeolian transport to move across the planet and find suitable habitats to thrive and evolve.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.