Central Park Features Worldwide Soil Microbes

The soil in Manhattan's Central Park contains microbial life that also exists in deserts, frozen tundra, forests, rainforests and prairies. Steve Mirsky reports. Oct 1, 2014 | |

"If you want to find unique diversity and if you want to find a wide range of different , you don't have to travel around the world. You can walk across ."

That statement comes from Noah Fierer, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He’s also a coauthor of a study that uncovered the surprisingly large diversity of subterranean microbial life at the 843-acre green rectangle in the heart of Manhattan. The research is in the . [Kelly S. Ramirez et al, ]

Investigators looked at 596 separate soil samples from the park and found thousands of different types of microbes. They also compared those microbes with those living in 52 other soil samples taken from all around the planet. The park had organisms that also exist in deserts, frozen tundra, forests, rainforests and prairies. Antarctica was the only area that had microbes that did not overlap with those found in Central Park. And only a small percentage of the park’s microbes were found to be already listed in databases.

The variety of microbes probably reflects a diversity of soil conditions within the park.

Seems that New York is a melting pot for people above the surface. And for microbes beneath it.

—Steve Mirsky