Microbial Community Changes in 26,500-Year-Old Thawing Permafrost
Northern permafrost soils store more than half of the global soil carbon. Frozen for at least two consecutive years, but often for millennia, permafrost temperatures have increased drastically in the last decades. The resulting thermal erosion leads not only to gradual thaw, resulting in an increase...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:401b48dde1574264b31c7122cf684a70 2023-05-15T16:28:28+02:00 Microbial Community Changes in 26,500-Year-Old Thawing Permafrost Maria Scheel Athanasios Zervas Carsten S. Jacobsen Torben R. Christensen 2022-03-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.787146 https://doaj.org/article/401b48dde1574264b31c7122cf684a70 EN eng Frontiers Media S.A. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.787146/full https://doaj.org/toc/1664-302X 1664-302X doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.787146 https://doaj.org/article/401b48dde1574264b31c7122cf684a70 Frontiers in Microbiology, Vol 13 (2022) permafrost erosion abrupt thaw 16S fungi Greenland amplicon sequencing Microbiology QR1-502 article 2022 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.787146 2022-12-30T22:03:17Z Northern permafrost soils store more than half of the global soil carbon. Frozen for at least two consecutive years, but often for millennia, permafrost temperatures have increased drastically in the last decades. The resulting thermal erosion leads not only to gradual thaw, resulting in an increase of seasonally thawing soil thickness, but also to abrupt thaw events, such as sudden collapses of the soil surface. These could affect 20% of the permafrost zone and half of its organic carbon, increasing accessibility for deeper rooting vegetation and microbial decomposition into greenhouse gases. Knowledge gaps include the impact of permafrost thaw on the soil microfauna as well as key taxa to change the microbial mineralization of ancient permafrost carbon stocks during erosion. Here, we present the first sequencing study of an abrupt permafrost erosion microbiome in Northeast Greenland, where a thermal erosion gully collapsed in the summer of 2018, leading to the thawing of 26,500-year-old permafrost material. We investigated which soil parameters (pH, soil carbon content, age and moisture, organic and mineral horizons, and permafrost layers) most significantly drove changes of taxonomic diversity and the abundance of soil microorganisms in two consecutive years of intense erosion. Sequencing of the prokaryotic 16S rRNA and fungal ITS2 gene regions at finely scaled depth increments revealed decreasing alpha diversity with depth, soil age, and pH. The most significant drivers of variation were found in the soil age, horizons, and permafrost layer for prokaryotic and fungal beta diversity. Permafrost was mainly dominated by Proteobacteria and Firmicutes, with Polaromonas identified as the most abundant taxon. Thawed permafrost samples indicated increased abundance of several copiotrophic phyla, such as Bacteroidia, suggesting alterations of carbon utilization pathways within eroding permafrost. Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland permafrost Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Greenland Frontiers in Microbiology 13 |
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Open Polar |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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language |
English |
topic |
permafrost erosion abrupt thaw 16S fungi Greenland amplicon sequencing Microbiology QR1-502 |
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permafrost erosion abrupt thaw 16S fungi Greenland amplicon sequencing Microbiology QR1-502 Maria Scheel Athanasios Zervas Carsten S. Jacobsen Torben R. Christensen Microbial Community Changes in 26,500-Year-Old Thawing Permafrost |
topic_facet |
permafrost erosion abrupt thaw 16S fungi Greenland amplicon sequencing Microbiology QR1-502 |
description |
Northern permafrost soils store more than half of the global soil carbon. Frozen for at least two consecutive years, but often for millennia, permafrost temperatures have increased drastically in the last decades. The resulting thermal erosion leads not only to gradual thaw, resulting in an increase of seasonally thawing soil thickness, but also to abrupt thaw events, such as sudden collapses of the soil surface. These could affect 20% of the permafrost zone and half of its organic carbon, increasing accessibility for deeper rooting vegetation and microbial decomposition into greenhouse gases. Knowledge gaps include the impact of permafrost thaw on the soil microfauna as well as key taxa to change the microbial mineralization of ancient permafrost carbon stocks during erosion. Here, we present the first sequencing study of an abrupt permafrost erosion microbiome in Northeast Greenland, where a thermal erosion gully collapsed in the summer of 2018, leading to the thawing of 26,500-year-old permafrost material. We investigated which soil parameters (pH, soil carbon content, age and moisture, organic and mineral horizons, and permafrost layers) most significantly drove changes of taxonomic diversity and the abundance of soil microorganisms in two consecutive years of intense erosion. Sequencing of the prokaryotic 16S rRNA and fungal ITS2 gene regions at finely scaled depth increments revealed decreasing alpha diversity with depth, soil age, and pH. The most significant drivers of variation were found in the soil age, horizons, and permafrost layer for prokaryotic and fungal beta diversity. Permafrost was mainly dominated by Proteobacteria and Firmicutes, with Polaromonas identified as the most abundant taxon. Thawed permafrost samples indicated increased abundance of several copiotrophic phyla, such as Bacteroidia, suggesting alterations of carbon utilization pathways within eroding permafrost. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Maria Scheel Athanasios Zervas Carsten S. Jacobsen Torben R. Christensen |
author_facet |
Maria Scheel Athanasios Zervas Carsten S. Jacobsen Torben R. Christensen |
author_sort |
Maria Scheel |
title |
Microbial Community Changes in 26,500-Year-Old Thawing Permafrost |
title_short |
Microbial Community Changes in 26,500-Year-Old Thawing Permafrost |
title_full |
Microbial Community Changes in 26,500-Year-Old Thawing Permafrost |
title_fullStr |
Microbial Community Changes in 26,500-Year-Old Thawing Permafrost |
title_full_unstemmed |
Microbial Community Changes in 26,500-Year-Old Thawing Permafrost |
title_sort |
microbial community changes in 26,500-year-old thawing permafrost |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.787146 https://doaj.org/article/401b48dde1574264b31c7122cf684a70 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
Greenland permafrost |
genre_facet |
Greenland permafrost |
op_source |
Frontiers in Microbiology, Vol 13 (2022) |
op_relation |
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.787146/full https://doaj.org/toc/1664-302X 1664-302X doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.787146 https://doaj.org/article/401b48dde1574264b31c7122cf684a70 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.787146 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Microbiology |
container_volume |
13 |
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1766018128189325312 |