Abstract
The article reports on the undocumented species discovered in the mountaintop environment of the Andes. The mountains are home to an astonishing variety of life-forms that survive amid thin soils, low oxygen, staggering winds, powerful ultraviolet rays, and surface temperatures that can plummet 90 Fahrenheit degrees when night falls. Research suggests that various bacteria live off the underlying rocks, depositing acids that dissolve out nutrients. Those nutrients then pass into the ground to fuel successor communities. Researchers found a water gooey with photosynthetic cyanobacteria. On bare sand, their dark masses were building into crusts, to form the beginnings of soil.
Natural History 115 (7): 44-50
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