GENEVA, Switzerland, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- European scientists analyzing aerial dust collected by Charles Darwin have determined microbes can travel across continents by attaching to dust particles.
Professor William Broughton of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, Anna Gorbushina of Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, Germany, and colleagues analyzed dust samples collected by Darwin and others nearly 200 years ago. They found the samples contained wind-fractionated dust from West Africa and as far as the Caribbean.
The researchers determined microbes, including ascomycetes, and eubacteria, can live for centuries and survive intercontinental travel.
"These findings push forward our understanding of planetary microbial ecology," said Broughton. "Obviously, intercontinental spread of micro-organisms has been with us for a very long time, so unless land-use patterns in the Western Sahara have changed recently, disasters like the demise of coral in the Caribbean, cannot be ascribed to the intercontinental travel of desert bugs."
The research is reported in the journal Environmental Microbiology.
