Strong Dispersal Limitation of Microbial Communities at Shackleton Glacier, Antarctica

• Published in: mSystems
• Main Authors: Lemoine, Nathan P., Adams, Byron J., Diaz, Melisa, Dragone, Nicholas B., Franco, André L. C., Fierer, Noah, Lyons, W. Berry, Hogg, Ian D., Wall, Diana H.
• Other Authors: Lurgi, Miguel, NSF Polar Programs, NSF | BIO | Division of Environmental Biology, NSF GRFP
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Society for Microbiology 2023
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica; Shackleton Glacier
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/msystems.01254-22; https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/msystems.01254-22

Because of their diversity and ubiquity, microbes provide an excellent means to tease apart how natural communities are structured. In general, ecologists believe that stochastic assembly processes, like random drift and dispersal, should dominate in benign environments while deterministic processes, like environmental filtering, should be prevalent in harsh environments.