title: Archaeal ammonia oxidizers respond to soil factors at smaller spatial scales than the overall archaeal community does in a high Arctic polar oasis.
abstract: Archaea are ubiquitous and highly abundant in Arctic soils. Because of their oligotrophic nature, archaea play an important role in biogeochemical processes in nutrient-limited Arctic soils. With the existing knowledge of high archaeal abundance and functional potential in Arctic soils, this study employed terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (t-RFLP) profiling and geostatistical analysis to explore spatial dependency and edaphic determinants of the overall archaeal (ARC) and ammonia-oxidizing archaeal (AOA) communities in a high Arctic polar oasis soil. ARC communities were spatially dependent at the 2-5 m scale (P < 0.05), whereas AOA communities were dependent at the ∼1 m scale (P < 0.0001). Soil moisture, pH, and total carbon content were key edaphic factors driving both the ARC and AOA community structure. However, AOA evenness had simultaneous correlations with dissolved organic nitrogen and mineral nitrogen, indicating a possible niche differentiation for AOA in which dry mineral and wet organic soil microsites support different AOA genotypes. Richness, evenness, and diversity indices of both ARC and AOA communities showed high spatial dependency along the landscape and resembled scaling of edaphic factors. The spatial link between archaeal community structure and soil resources found in this study has implications for predictive understanding of archaea-driven processes in polar oases.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Soil Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A8, Canada.|b CSIRO Agriculture, Crace, ACT 2911, Australia.
authors.forename: Samiran
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Banerjee
authors.affiliation: c Ecosystem Science & Management Program, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada.
authors.forename: Nabla
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.affiliation: b CSIRO Agriculture, Crace, ACT 2911, Australia.
authors.forename: Alan E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.affiliation: c Ecosystem Science & Management Program, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada.
authors.forename: Keith N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Egger
authors.affiliation: a Department of Soil Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A8, Canada.
authors.forename: Steven D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Siciliano
mesh_terms: D000641:Ammonia / Q000378:metabolism*; D001105:Archaea / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D001110:Arctic Regions; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D000641:Ammonia; D009584:Nitrogen
keywords: 16S rRNA; ARNr 16S; amoA; archaea; archéens; spatial scale; t-RFLP; échelle spatiale