Every human body holds trillions of microbes that are crucial to life. These microbes aid with food digestion, vitamin production, protection, and several other functions.
Microbes That Live After Human Death
Given their crucial functions, it is not wrong to wonder about what happens to these minute organisms after the human body dies. While some may assume that these microbes die when a human dies, a new study suggests that these microorganisms live on after death and even play vital roles in body recycling for the flourishing of new life.
When a person dies, blood circulation stops and, thus, stops the flow of oxygen throughout the body. Oxygen-deprived cells start undergoing a process known as autolysis, wherein they begin to digest themselves.
The enzymes within those cells start working on the proteins, DNA, membranes, and other cell components. Their cellular breakdown products serve as great food for symbiotic bacteria. Moreover, because the immune system is no longer there to monitor them and because there is no longer a steady food supply from the digestive system, this becomes a new nutrition source.
When the body does not have oxygen, its anaerobic bacteria depend on energy production processes, including fermentation, that do not need oxygen to be executed. These lead to the distinct gaseous and smelly signatures of decomposition.
New Microbial Environment
If the body is buried beneath the ground, the human body's microbes get flushed into the soil with other fluids of decomposition. These microbes enter a fresh environment and end up getting acquainted with a new soil microbial community.
The mix's outcomes depend on various factors, including who came first and the gravity of environmental change experienced by the microbes.
While microbes are used to warm and stable environments within the body, soil offers harsh living conditions as it is a highly variable environment. Aside from that, the microbial community within soil is exceptionally diverse and well-adapted. These soil microbes may have the potential to outcompete any new microbial arrivals.
Collaboration of Body and Soil Microbes
Though it is easy to think that microbes die when they exit the body, some earlier studies have shown that the DNA signatures of these microbes could actually be picked up in the graves, in the soil under a decaying body, and on the soil surface months or years after the decomposition of the body's soft tissues.
The newest study shows that microbes do not just dwell in the soil but also collaborate with inherent soil microbes for the decomposition process. In fact, lab testing revealed that a mix of decomposition fluids and microbe-filled soil boosted the rates of decomposition that went beyond the numbers pertaining to soil communities on their own.
Not to mention, the researchers also discovered that microbes associated with the host boosted nitrogen cycling, which is crucial to life. Most of the Earth's nitrogen is linked to atmospheric gas that organisms are unable to use. Decomposers have crucial roles to play when it comes to recycling organic nitrogen forms. The findings suggest that decomposing microbes play a role in this process of recycling.
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