English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Motility is a ubiquitous feature of microbial life on Earth, and is widelyregarded as a promising biosignature candidate. In the search for motileorganisms, it is therefore valuable to have rough estimates for the number ofsuch microbes that one may expect to find in a given area or volume. In thiswork, we explore this question by employing a simple theoretical model thattakes into account the amount of free energy available in a given environmentand the energetic cost of motility. We present heuristic upper bounds for theaverage biomass density and the number density of motile lifeforms for theMartian subsurface and the ocean of Enceladus by presuming that the motilemicrobes in question derive their energy from methanogenesis. We consequentlydemonstrate that the resultant densities of motile organisms might bepotentially comparable to, or much lower than, the total microbial densitiesdocumented in various extreme environments on Earth.

Physical Constraints on Motility with Applications to Possible Life on Mars and Enceladus