Prior exposure of microbial communities to seawater reduces resilience but increases compositional and functional resistance to flooding events.

Storm surges, flooding, and the encroachment of seawater onto agricultural land are predicted to increase with climate change. These flooding events fundamentally alter many soil properties and have knock-on effects on the microbial community composition and its functioning. The hypotheses tested in this study were (1) that the extent of change (resistance) of microbial community functioning and structure during seawater flooding is a factor of pre-adaptation to the stress, and (2) if structure and function are altered, the pre-adaptation will result in communities returning to previous state prior to flooding (resilience) faster than unexposed communities.

Identification of a Stable Hydrogen-Driven Microbiome in a Highly Radioactive Storage Facility on the Sellafield Site.

The use of nuclear power has been a significant part of the United Kingdom's energy portfolio with the Sellafield site being used for power production and more recently reprocessing and decommissioning of spent nuclear fuel activities. Before being reprocessed, spent nuclear fuel is stored in water ponds with significant levels of background radioactivity and in high alkalinity (to minimize fuel corrosion). Despite these challenging conditions, the presence of microbial communities has been detected.