Could ecological roles offer clues to how life began?

Different environments may support overlapping chemical functions relevant to life's beginnings. Ice–water interfaces can concentrate reactants and support selected synthetic reactions, while hydrothermal systems can support synthesis, transformation, and breakdown. Connections between settings could allow products to enter further reactions, provided they survive transport. These proposed relationships do not represent an established historical sequence. Credit: Haru Sakai

Producers, consumers, and decomposers play different roles in today's ecosystems. Thinking about these familiar roles led me to a question: Could their differences partly reflect the different physical and chemical environments in which early life developed? I wondered whether the organization of ecosystems might offer a useful starting point for thinking about life's beginnings.

This question connects with a theme running through my research. I have studied soil colloids, biological membranes, radiation-induced reactions, and the movement of trace substances in the environment. Across these subjects, I have become increasingly interested in how environmental structures influence what molecules do. Interfaces, gradients, barriers, and flows affect where substances accumulate, which reactions occur, and whether their products remain available.

In my paper published in The Science of Nature, I bring this perspective to the origin of life. I explore whether different environments could have supported complementary chemical functions, and whether exchanges between them helped those functions become connected.

An environment does more than supply energy

Hydrothermal vents are compelling candidates for life's beginnings. Interactions between water and rock can supply chemical energy, reactive minerals, and conditions that support organic synthesis. Hydrothermal pores may also concentrate molecules, while cooler mixing zones offer conditions different from those in hot vent fluids.

I am interested in how these varied conditions affect the fate of reaction products. Making a useful molecule is one step. Keeping it available for another reaction is another. A product may accumulate, attach to a mineral surface, move elsewhere, or break down.

Breakdown also deserves attention. If an organic compound breaks into smaller products that can enter subsequent reactions, that process could contribute to chemical reuse. Hydrothermal systems may therefore support synthesis, transformation, and potentially recycling, depending on local conditions.

This does not make hydrothermal vents exclusively "decomposer-like." Their possible roles overlap. It does suggest that we should examine what happens to supplied organic compounds alongside asking what vents can produce from simpler starting materials.

What ice can contribute

Ice–water interfaces offer a different set of possibilities. When water freezes, many dissolved substances are excluded from the growing crystals and become concentrated in the remaining liquid. These small liquid regions can bring reactants together.

Previous experiments have demonstrated selected synthetic reactions in ice. Chemically activated RNA building blocks supplied by researchers can join into longer chains. Other studies have shown that an existing RNA catalyst can function in liquid regions within ice.

I find these results interesting because they show how physical surroundings can change the opportunities available to molecules. They do not establish that ice spontaneously produces RNA from simple ingredients. Suitable reactants and chemical activation remain necessary, and thawing can dilute or remove products.

The question I want to pursue is whether such settings could retain useful compounds long enough for further chemistry, including reactions after transfer elsewhere.

From ecological roles to chemical functions

To organize these possibilities, I use producer-like, consumer-like, and decomposer-like functions as analogies.

Producer-like processes form or elaborate organic products from specified reactants. Consumer-like processes use supplied organic compounds in further reactions. Decomposer-like processes break compounds into smaller, potentially reusable products.

These terms describe possible chemical functions. They do not establish metabolism, biological consumption, or an ecosystem before cells. Nor do they assign each environment a single role.

My original question concerns whether environmental differences helped shape the emergence of biological roles. The more immediate, experimentally accessible question is whether different settings can support complementary chemistry.

For example, compounds concentrated in one setting might undergo further reactions in another. Some resulting products might then become available for reuse. Such exchanges could connect processes that would be difficult to sustain within one environment alone.

I call this perspective environmental structural ecology: examining how the arrangement and connections of reaction environments influence chemical activity.

Putting the connections to the test

Connections are useful only if molecules survive the journey. Transfer can dilute compounds, expose them to destructive conditions, or deliver them to incompatible chemistry. Long-distance transport between polar ice and deep-sea vents presents substantial challenges. More local exchanges around cooler hydrothermal margins or porous sediments may offer practical starting points for experiments.

I would test the proposal by comparing connected reactors with isolated reactors receiving matched total amounts of feedstock and energy. One reactor might provide conditions for concentration and retention, while another supports chemical transformation.

Researchers could track specific compounds through both stages. Do transferred molecules survive? Do they enter subsequent products? Does coupling the environments sustain reaction activity better than keeping them separate?

Evidence of recycling would require demonstrated reuse. Simply finding smaller fragments after breakdown would be insufficient. Likewise, any advantage of coupling would need to be distinguished from effects caused by concentration, dilution, or reaction time.

Following molecules between environments

My paper presents a conceptual framework rather than new experimental validation. It does not identify the actual route from prebiotic chemistry to heritable life, or establish that today's ecological roles preserve a record of separate environments of origin.

What I hope to contribute is a testable way to explore the question that started this work. Environmental differences may have helped shape which chemical functions could persist, and connections may have allowed those functions to interact. By following molecules between settings, we can investigate how the structure of the surroundings might have contributed to the beginnings of biological organization.

This story is part of Science X Dialog, where researchers can report findings from their published research articles. Visit this page for information about Science X Dialog and how to participate.

More information

Shinya Kato, Rethinking hydrothermal vents: a structural ecology perspective on the early emergence of metabolic roles, The Science of Nature (2026). DOI: 10.1007/s00114-026-02189-x. On Zenodo: zenodo.org/records/20772004

Who's behind this story?

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Robert Egan

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Shinya Kato is an Associate Professor at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Radiation and Nuclear Science (KURNS). His research spans colloid chemistry, environmental science, radiation biology, and nanomaterials. He investigates how environmental structures influence the concentration, transport, persistence, and reactions of substances. His recent theoretical work explores the origin of life through environmental structural ecology, examining how interfaces, gradients, and connections between environments could support complementary chemical functions relevant to life’s emergence.

Citation: Could ecological roles offer clues to how life began? (2026, October 26) retrieved 26 October 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ecological-roles-clues-life-began.html

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