Environmental control on the distribution of metabolic strategies of benthic microbial mats in Lake Fryxell, Antarctica

• Main Authors: Dillon, Megan L, Hawes, Ian, Jungblut, Anne D, Mackey, Tyler J, Eisen, Jonathan A, Doran, Peter T, Sumner, Dawn Y
• Other Authors: Loiselle, Steven Arthur
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: eScholarship, University of California 2020
• Subjects: Microbiology; Biological Sciences; Ecology; Genetics; Human Genome; Antarctic Regions; Bacteria; Carbon Cycle; Geologic Sediments; Lakes; Metagenome; Microbiota; Oxygen; Photosynthesis; Phylogeny; General Science & Technology; Antarctic; Fryxell; Lake Fryxell; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/68h2m436

Ecological theories posit that heterogeneity in environmental conditions greatly affects community structure and function. However, the degree to which ecological theory developed using plant- and animal-dominated systems applies to microbiomes is unclear. Investigating the metabolic strategies found in microbiomes are particularly informative for testing the universality of ecological theories because microorganisms have far wider metabolic capacity than plants and animals. We used metagenomic analyses to explore the relationships between the energy and physicochemical gradients in Lake Fryxell and the metabolic capacity of its benthic microbiome. Statistical analysis of the relative abundance of metabolic marker genes and gene family diversity shows that oxygenic photosynthesis, carbon fixation, and flavin-based electron bifurcation differentiate mats growing in different environmental conditions. The pattern of gene family diversity points to the likely importance of temporal environmental heterogeneity in addition to resource gradients. Overall, we found that the environmental heterogeneity of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and oxygen concentration ([O2]) in Lake Fryxell provide the framework by which metabolic diversity and composition of the community is structured, in accordance with its phylogenetic structure. The organization of the resulting microbial ecosystems are consistent with the maximum power principle and the species sorting model.