McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER: Transplant Lake Integrated Connectivity Experiment (tLICE) in Taylor Valley, Antarctica, January 2018

• Main Authors: McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER, Morgan-Kiss, Rachael
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Environmental Data Initiative 2020
• Subjects: Bonney; Lake Bonney; McMurdo Dry Valleys; Taylor Valley; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/00cbcc20ab63feb5bb69a9109f35b697; https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/mapbrowse?packageid=knb-lter-mcm.3004.1

The purpose of this experiment, performed as part of the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research (MCM LTER) program, was to investigate the impact of lake level rise and moat expansion on microbial community diversity and function in the East Lobe of Lake Bonney, located in Taylor Valley, Antarctica. The “tLICE†experiment tested the following MCM5 Hypotheses: H3-Disturbance increases connectivity and accelerates shifts towards homogeneity, and H4-Decreased heterogeneity reduces community resistance and resilience. Lake water from the East Lobe of Lake Bonney was collected at depths representing maximum phytoplankton productivity (5 m, 17 m, 23 m), and transferred to dialysis bags. The bags were then attached to PVC frames and transplanted to new locations within the lake in two experiments: 1) a moat transplant, in which 5 m communities were transplanted to the open water moat; and 2) shallow to deep transplant, in which communities from all three sampling depths were moved 3 m down the water column to mimic approximately one decade of lake level rise. Transplanted samples were incubated under these conditions for two weeks, and then frames were recovered and samples were processed for a number of measurements. This data package includes the following measurements: nutrient concentration, chlorophyll-a content, chlorophyll fluorescence, cell density, amplicon gene sequences (16S and 18S rRNA genes), and physical parameters.