Antarctic Microbial BIOdiversity : the importance of geographical versus ecological factors

• Main Authors: Obbels, Dagmar, De Carvalho Maalouf, Pedro, De Wever, Aaike, Peeters, Karolien, Willems, Anne, Verleyen, Elie, Vyverman, Wim, Wilmotte, Annick
• Other Authors: CIP - Centre d'Ingénierie des Protéines - ULiège
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: microbial diversity; Antarctic; Biogeography; cyanobacteria; Life sciences; Environmental sciences & ecology; Microbiology; Sciences du vivant; Sciences de l’environnement & écologie; Microbiologie; Antarc*; Antarctic Science; Antarctica; Antarctique*
• Online Access: https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/142087; https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/142087/1/abstractAMBIOPortlandfinal.doc

Antarctica is a prime region to test whether microbes have a biogeography and to study their metacommunity dynamics, because (i) it is isolated from the other continents, (ii) its extreme environmental conditions allow microorganisms to dominate its ecosystems, and (iii) lacustrine and terrestrial habitats occur isolated in a matrix of ice and ocean. We compiled a large set of samples from benthic microbial mats from Antarctic lakes in different ice-free regions and used a polyphasic approach to study their microbial biodiversity by combining morphological characterization of diatoms with molecular techniques such as Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (green algae and cyanobacteria), 454 pyrosequencing and cultivation (prokaryotes). AMBIO