James Ross Island (Antarctica) lake benthic Bacterial V4 16S rDNA (RIB)
This dataset is part of a study submitted to FEMS Microbiology Ecology under the title "Recently-formed Antarctic lakes host less diverse benthic bacterial and diatom communities than their older counterparts". The fastq files contain V4 16S rDNA sequences (primer pair 515F/806R) which were demultiplexed, barcode tags and primer sequences removed, and paired-end reads joined (using the QIIME2 plugin cutadapt v. 2021.11). At such stage, the sequences are prior to the filtering and thus contain not only Bacterial reads but also Archeal, mitochondrial, plastidial, chimeric and low-quality sequences which, in the submitted study, were filtered out during the subsequent steps of the pipeline. In case of interest in more details and/or data, see the publication or contact the authors (jan.kollar.phd@gmail.com). The abstract of the submitted manuscript follows:"Glacier recession is leaving behind new waterbodies in proglacial forelands worldwide, including Antarctica. Yet, it is not known how microbial communities of recently formed young waterbodies (originating decades to a century ago) compare with established old counterparts (millennia ago). Here, we compared benthic microbial communities of young and old lakes on James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula, using 16S rDNA metabarcoding and light microscopy to explore bacterial and diatom communities, respectively. We found that microbial communities significantly differed among the two age groups, with older lakes hosting significantly more bacterial and diatom diversity than young ones. To identify potential mechanisms for these differences, linear models and dbRDA analyses found combinations of water temperature, pH, and conductivity to be the most important factors for microbial diversity and community structuring. These results, along with the application of an indicator species analysis, hint at the importance of thermal, ionic, and physical habitat constraints to community assembly, and that newly formed waterbodies are not likely to share the same level of diversity as established ones. Collectively, these results improve our understanding of microbial community drivers in Antarctic freshwaters, and help predict how the microbial landscape may shift with future habitat creation within a changing environment."