Taxonomic and Functional Diversity of Soil and Hypolithic Microbial Communities in Miers Valley, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica.
The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica are an extreme polar desert. Mineral soils support subsurface microbial communities and translucent rocks support development of hypolithic communities on ventral surfaces in soil contact. Despite significant research attention, relatively little is known about taxonomic and functional diversity or their inter-relationships. Here we report a combined diversity and functional interrogation for soil and hypoliths of the Miers Valley in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. The study employed 16S rRNA fingerprinting and high throughput sequencing combined with the GeoChip functional microarray. The soil community was revealed as a highly diverse reservoir of bacterial diversity dominated by actinobacteria. Hypolithic communities were less diverse and dominated by cyanobacteria. Major differences in putative functionality were that soil communities displayed greater diversity in stress tolerance and recalcitrant substrate utilization pathways, whilst hypolithic communities supported greater diversity of nutrient limitation adaptation pathways. A relatively high level of functional redundancy in both soil and hypoliths may indicate adaptation of these communities to fluctuating environmental conditions.
Institute for Applied Ecology New Zealand, School of Applied Sciences, Auckland University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand.
Sean T S
ST
Wei
Institute for Applied Ecology New Zealand, School of Applied Sciences, Auckland University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand.
Donnabella C
DC
Lacap-Bugler
Department of Geosciences, Princeton University Princeton, NJ, USA.
Maggie C Y
MC
Lau
School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University Belfast Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Tancredi
T
Caruso
Department of Health Technology and Informatics, Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong, China.
Subramanya
S
Rao
Departamento de Biogeoquímica y Ecología Microbiana, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales Madrid, Spain.
Asunción
A
de Los Rios
Institute for Applied Ecology New Zealand, School of Applied Sciences, Auckland University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand.
Stephen K
SK
Archer
Department of Biology, Hong Kong Baptist University Hong Kong, China.
Jill M Y
JM
Chiu
Institute for Applied Ecology New Zealand, School of Applied Sciences, Auckland University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand.
Colleen
C
Higgins
Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma Norman, OK, USA.
Joy D
JD
Van Nostrand
Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of OklahomaNorman, OK, USA; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua UniversityBeijing, China; Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryBerkeley, CA, USA.
Jizhong
J
Zhou
School of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Royal Agricultural University Gloucestershire, UK.
David W
DW
Hopkins
Institute for Applied Ecology New Zealand, School of Applied Sciences, Auckland University of TechnologyAuckland, New Zealand; Institute of Nature and Environmental Technology, Kanazawa UniversityKanazawa, Japan.
Stephen B
SB
Pointing
Antarctica; Dry Valleys; Geochip; cyanobacteria; hypolith; soil