Hypolithic Microbial Community of Quartz Pavement in the High-Altitude Tundra of Central Tibet
The hypolithic microbial community associated with quartz pavement at a high-altitude tundra location in central Tibet is described. A small-scale ecological survey indicated that 36% of quartz rocks were colonized. Community profiling using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism revealed...
Published in: | Microbial Ecology |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Springer-Verlag
2010
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2974210 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20336290 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-010-9653-2 |
Summary: | The hypolithic microbial community associated with quartz pavement at a high-altitude tundra location in central Tibet is described. A small-scale ecological survey indicated that 36% of quartz rocks were colonized. Community profiling using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism revealed no significant difference in community structure among a number of colonized rocks. Real-time quantitative PCR and phylogenetic analysis of environmental phylotypes obtained from clone libraries were used to elucidate community structure across all domains. The hypolithon was dominated by cyanobacterial phylotypes (73%) with relatively low frequencies of other bacterial phylotypes, largely represented by the chloroflexi, actinobacteria, and bacteriodetes. Unidentified crenarchaeal phylotypes accounted for 4% of recoverable phylotypes, while algae, fungi, and mosses were indicated by a small fraction of recoverable phylotypes. |
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