Iron rich hot springs as analogues to Precambrian oceans. Bacteria

Circumneutral ferruginous hot springs may reflect some environments on the early Earth, providing windows into potential ancient surficial microbial ecology. Here we comparatively sampled five ferruginous hot springs in Japan which may be considered Precambrian-surface-systems analogues to gain insight into functional processes and taxonomic membership which may have been attendant on early Earth. Bulk metagenomic sequencing and metagenome assembled genomes confirms a hypothesis where microbial membership is linked to environment, and is distinct between sites, despite all sites being circumneutral, high in ferrous iron, and warm.