Bacterioplankton Community Composition Along Environmental Gradients in Lakes From Byers Peninsula (Maritime Antarctica) as Determined by Next-Generation Sequencing

• Published in: Frontiers in Microbiology
• Main Authors: Antonio Picazo, Carlos Rochera, Juan Antonio Villaescusa, Javier Miralles-Lorenzo, David Velázquez, Antonio Quesada, Antonio Camacho
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
• Subjects: next-generation sequencing; Byers Peninsula; bacterioplankton; Maritime Antarctic lakes; environmental gradients; Microbiology; QR1-502; Antarctic; Byers; Byers peninsula; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00908; https://doaj.org/article/a2419ec44b8e44cf8cd07ed79fec3b61

This study comprises the first attempt to describe the planktonic bacterial communities of lakes from Byers Peninsula, one of the most significant limnological districts in the Maritime Antarctica, leveraging next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. For the survey, we selected 7 lakes covering the environmental gradient from inland to coastal lakes, some of them sampled both in surface and deep waters. Analysis provided just over 85,000 high quality sequences that were clustered into 864 unique Zero-radius Operational Taxonomic Units (ZOTUs) (i.e., 100% sequence similarity). Yet, several taxonomic uncertainties remained in the analysis likely suggesting the occurrence of local bacterial adaptations. The survey showed the dominance of the phyla Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. Among the former, the Gammaproteobacteria class, more specifically the order Betaproteobacteriales, was the dominant group, which seems to be a common trend in nutrient-limited Antarctic lakes. Most of the families and genera ubiquitously detected belonging to this class are indeed typical from ultra-oligotrophic environments, and commonly described as diazotrophs. On the other hand, among the members of the phylum Bacteroidetes, genera such as Flavobacterium were abundant in some of the shallowest lakes, thus demonstrating that also benthic and sediment-associated bacteria contributed to water bacterial assemblages. Ordination analyses sorted bacterial assemblages mainly based on the environmental gradients of nutrient availability and conductivity i.e., salinity. However, transient bacterial associations, that included the groups Clostridiaceae and Chloroflexi, also occurred as being forced by other drivers such as the influence of the nearby fauna and by the airborne microorganisms. As we intended, our NGS-based approach has provided a much greater resolution compared to the previous studies conducted in the area and confirmed to a large extent the previously obtained patterns, thus reinforcing the view of Byers as a hotspot of ...