ArticleScience advances2020
Widespread energy limitation to life in global subseafloor sediments.
Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers.
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
56 citing papers in PubMed.
- Groundwater microbial communities across the terrestrial subsurface.Nature microbiology · 2026Review
- Community structure and methylation of microbes in an artificially forced sediment core.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Organic carbon oxidation state shapes fermentative methanogenic microbiomes and controls greenhouse gas fluxes.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Ecological drivers of Promethearchaeati's specialization for deep subsurface environments.Communications biology · 2026Review
- Environmental Adaptation Strategies of Deep-Sea Fungi.Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Sedimentary hiatus causes abrupt decline and shifts in marine subsurface sediment microbial communities: a study from IODP Exp. 378 Site U1553 offshore southern New Zealand.FEMS microbiology letters · 2026Article
- Oxic Subseafloor Microbial Communities Retain Anabolic Capacity under both Oxic and Oxygen-depleted Conditions.Microbes and environments · 2026Article
- Subsurface Life on Earth as a Key to Unlock Extraterrestrial Mysteries.Microbial biotechnology · 2025Review
- Microbial aerotrophy enables continuous primary production in diverse cave ecosystems.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Seismic shifts in the geochemical and microbial composition of a Yellowstone aquifer.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- Article
- Moderate heating renders 7.8-million-year-old sedimentary organic matter bioavailable.Science advances · 2025Article
- Defining ultra-slow-growing extremophilic microorganisms as aeonophiles.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
- Microbial dormancy as an ecological and biogeochemical regulator on Earth.Nature communications · 2025Review
- Preservation of organic carbon in marine sediments sustained by sorption and transformation processes.Nature geoscience · 2025Article
- Distribution of methane-cycling archaea in buried ridge flank sediment: community zonation, activity, and potential environmental drivers.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Geochemical variability and microbial metabolic functions in oligotrophic sediments exposed to minor seepage.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Review
- A global comparison of surface and subsurface microbiomes reveals large-scale biodiversity gradients, and a marine-terrestrial divide.Science advances · 2024Article
- Isotopic evidence of acetate turnover in Precambrian continental fracture fluids.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Mining microbial and metabolic dark matter in extreme environments: a roadmap for harnessing the power of multi-omics data.Advanced biotechnology · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Microbial cells buried in subseafloor sediments comprise a substantial portion of Earth's biosphere and control global biogeochemical cycles; however, the rate at which they use energy (i.e., power) is virtually unknown. Here, we quantify organic matter degradation and calculate the power utilization of microbial cells throughout Earth's Quaternary-age subseafloor sediments. Aerobic respiration, sulfate reduction, and methanogenesis mediate 6.9, 64.5, and 28.6% of global subseafloor organic matter degradation, respectively. The total power utilization of the subseafloor sediment biosphere is 37.3 gigawatts, less than 0.1% of the power produced in the marine photic zone. Aerobic heterotrophs use the largest share of global power (54.5%) with a median power utilization of 2.23 × 10
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Registered trials
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.