title: Distinct composition signatures of archaeal and bacterial phylotypes in the Wanda Glacier forefield, Antarctic Peninsula.
abstract: Several studies have shown that microbial communities in Antarctic environments are highly diverse. However, considering that the Antarctic Peninsula is among the regions with the fastest warming rates, and that regional climate change has been linked to an increase in the mean rate of glacier retreat, the microbial diversity in Antarctic soil is still poorly understood. In this study, we analysed more than 40 000 sequences of the V5-V6 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene obtained by 454 pyrosequencing from four soil samples from the Wanda Glacier forefield, King George Island, Antarctic Peninsula. Phylotype diversity and richness were surprisingly high, and taxonomic assignment of sequences revealed that communities are dominated by Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Euryarchaeota, with a high frequency of archaeal and bacterial phylotypes unclassified at the genus level and without cultured representative strains, representing a distinct microbial community signature. Several phylotypes were related to marine microorganisms, indicating the importance of the marine environment as a source of colonizers for this recently deglaciated environment. Finally, dominant phylotypes were related to different microorganisms possessing a large array of metabolic strategies, indicating that early successional communities in Antarctic glacier forefield can be also functionally diverse.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Biotecnologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Avenida Bento Gonçalves, 9500 - Agronomia, Porto Alegre - RS, 91501-970, Brazil.
authors.forename: Igor S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Pessi
authors.affiliation: Research Group Microbial Ecology: Metabolism, Genomics and Evolution of Communities of Environmental Microorganisms, CorpoGen, Carrera 5 66A-34, 110231, Bogotá, DC, Colombia.
authors.forename: César
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Osorio-Forero
authors.affiliation: Research Group Microbial Ecology: Metabolism, Genomics and Evolution of Communities of Environmental Microorganisms, CorpoGen, Carrera 5 66A-34, 110231, Bogotá, DC, Colombia.
authors.forename: Eric J C
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Gálvez
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Avenida Bento Gonçalves, 9500 - Agronomia, Porto Alegre - RS, 91501-970, Brazil.
authors.forename: Felipe L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Simões
authors.affiliation: Centro Polar e Climático, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Avenida Bento Gonçalves, 9500 - Agronomia, Porto Alegre - RS, 91501-970, Brazil.
authors.forename: Jefferson C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Simões
authors.affiliation: Research Group Microbial Ecology: Metabolism, Genomics and Evolution of Communities of Environmental Microorganisms, CorpoGen, Carrera 5 66A-34, 110231, Bogotá, DC, Colombia info@howardjunca.com.
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Junca
authors.affiliation: Centro de Biotecnologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Avenida Bento Gonçalves, 9500 - Agronomia, Porto Alegre - RS, 91501-970, Brazil Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Avenida Ipiranga, 2752 - Azenha, Porto Alegre - RS, 90610-000, Brazil.
authors.forename: Alexandre J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Macedo
mesh_terms: D000864:Antarctic Regions; D001105:Archaea / Q000235:genetics*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D044822:Biodiversity; D057231:Climate Change; D004777:Environment; D046448:Ice Cover / Q000382:microbiology*; D059013:Microbial Consortia / Q000235:genetics*; D020560:Proteobacteria / Q000235:genetics; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012987:Soil; D012988:Soil Microbiology
chemical_list: D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D012987:Soil
keywords: microbial diversity; next-generation sequencing; recently deglaciated environments