Habitability Models for Astrobiology

Abel Méndez¹, Edgard G Rivera-Valentín², Dirk Schulze-Makuch³, Justin Filiberto², Ramses M Ramírez⁴, Tana E Wood⁵, Alfonso Dávila⁶, Chris McKay⁶, Kevin N Ortiz Ceballos¹, Marcos Jusino-Maldonado¹, Nicole J Torres-Santiago¹, Guillermo Nery⁷, René Heller⁸, Paul K Byrne⁹, Michael J Malaska¹⁰, Erica Nathan¹¹, Marta Filipa Simões¹², André Antunes¹², Jesús Martínez-Frías¹³, Ludmila Carone¹⁴, Noam R Izenberg¹⁵, Dimitra Atri¹⁶, Humberto Itic Carvajal Chitty¹⁷, Priscilla Nowajewski-Barra¹⁸, Frances Rivera-Hernández¹⁹, Corine Y Brown²⁰, Kennda L Lynch², David Catling²¹, Jorge I Zuluaga²², Juan F Salazar²³, Howard Chen²⁴, Grizelle González⁵, Madhu Kashyap Jagadeesh²⁵, Jacob Haqq-Misra²⁶

Affiliations

¹ Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA.
² Lunar and Planetary Institute, USRA, Houston, Texas, USA.
³ Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section Geomicrobiology, Potsdam, Germany; Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Stechlin, Germany.
⁴ University of Central Florida, Department of Physics, Orlando, Florida, USA; Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
⁵ USDA Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA.
⁶ NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA.
⁷ University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA.
⁸ Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research; Institute for Astrophysics, University of Göttingen, Germany.
⁹ North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.
¹⁰ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA.
¹¹ Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
¹² State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macau SAR, China.
¹³ Instituto de Geociencias (CSIC-UCM), Madrid, Spain.
¹⁴ Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany.
¹⁵ Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, USA.
¹⁶ Center for Space Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
¹⁷ Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, Venezuela.
¹⁸ Fundación Ciencias Planetarias, Santiago, Chile.
¹⁹ Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
²⁰ Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
²¹ University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
²² Institute of Physics / FCEN - Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
²³ GIGA, Escuela Ambiental, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
²⁴ Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA.
²⁵ Jyoti Nivas College, Bengaluru, India.
²⁶ Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, Seattle, Washington, USA.

PMID: 34382857
DOI: 10.1089/ast.2020.2342

Free article

Review

Habitability Models for Astrobiology

Abel Méndez et al. Astrobiology. 2021 Aug.

Free article

. 2021 Aug;21(8):1017-1027.

doi: 10.1089/ast.2020.2342. Epub 2021 Aug 11.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA.
² Lunar and Planetary Institute, USRA, Houston, Texas, USA.
³ Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section Geomicrobiology, Potsdam, Germany; Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Stechlin, Germany.
⁴ University of Central Florida, Department of Physics, Orlando, Florida, USA; Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
⁵ USDA Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA.
⁶ NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA.
⁷ University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA.
⁸ Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research; Institute for Astrophysics, University of Göttingen, Germany.
⁹ North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.
¹⁰ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA.
¹¹ Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
¹² State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macau SAR, China.
¹³ Instituto de Geociencias (CSIC-UCM), Madrid, Spain.
¹⁴ Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany.
¹⁵ Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, USA.
¹⁶ Center for Space Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
¹⁷ Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, Venezuela.
¹⁸ Fundación Ciencias Planetarias, Santiago, Chile.
¹⁹ Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
²⁰ Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
²¹ University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
²² Institute of Physics / FCEN - Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
²³ GIGA, Escuela Ambiental, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
²⁴ Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA.
²⁵ Jyoti Nivas College, Bengaluru, India.
²⁶ Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, Seattle, Washington, USA.

PMID: 34382857
DOI: 10.1089/ast.2020.2342

Abstract

Habitability has been generally defined as the capability of an environment to support life. Ecologists have been using Habitat Suitability Models (HSMs) for more than four decades to study the habitability of Earth from local to global scales. Astrobiologists have been proposing different habitability models for some time, with little integration and consistency among them, being different in function to those used by ecologists. Habitability models are not only used to determine whether environments are habitable, but they also are used to characterize what key factors are responsible for the gradual transition from low to high habitability states. Here we review and compare some of the different models used by ecologists and astrobiologists and suggest how they could be integrated into new habitability standards. Such standards will help improve the comparison and characterization of potentially habitable environments, prioritize target selections, and study correlations between habitability and biosignatures. Habitability models are the foundation of planetary habitability science, and the synergy between ecologists and astrobiologists is necessary to expand our understanding of the habitability of Earth, the Solar System, and extrasolar planets.

Keywords: Astrobiology; Biosignatures; Exoplanets; Habitability; Habitat Suitability Models; Planetary habitability.

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Habitability Models for Astrobiology

Affiliations

Habitability Models for Astrobiology

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