Hypolithic communities shape soils and organic matter reservoirs in the ice-free landscapes of East Antarctica

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Mergelov, Nikita, Dolgikh, Andrey, Shorkunov, Ilya, Zazovskaya, Elya, Soina, Vera, Yakushev, Andrey, Fedorov-Davydov, Dmitry, Pryakhin, Sergey, Dobryansky, Alexander
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2020
• Subjects: Multidisciplinary; East Antarctica; Larsemann Hills; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67248-3; http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67248-3.pdf; http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67248-3

Abstract The soils of East Antarctica have no rhizosphere with the bulk of organo-mineral interactions confined to the thin microbial and cryptogamic crusts that occur in open or cryptic niches and are collectively known as biological soil crust (BSC). Here we demonstrate that cryptic hypolithic var...