Changes in the Active, Dead, and Dormant Microbial Community Structure across a Pleistocene Permafrost Chronosequence
Permafrost hosts a community of microorganisms that survive and reproduce for millennia despite extreme environmental conditions, such as water stress, subzero temperatures, high salinity, and low nutrient availability. Many studies focused on permafrost microbial community composition use DNA-based...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6585489 2023-05-15T17:55:28+02:00 Changes in the Active, Dead, and Dormant Microbial Community Structure across a Pleistocene Permafrost Chronosequence Burkert, Alexander Douglas, Thomas A. Waldrop, Mark P. Mackelprang, Rachel 2019-03-22 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6585489/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30683748 https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02646-18 en eng American Society for Microbiology http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6585489/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30683748 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02646-18 Copyright © 2019 Burkert et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Environmental Microbiology Text 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02646-18 2019-07-07T00:46:47Z Permafrost hosts a community of microorganisms that survive and reproduce for millennia despite extreme environmental conditions, such as water stress, subzero temperatures, high salinity, and low nutrient availability. Many studies focused on permafrost microbial community composition use DNA-based methods, such as metagenomics and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. However, these methods do not distinguish among active, dead, and dormant cells. This is of particular concern in ancient permafrost, where constant subzero temperatures preserve DNA from dead organisms and dormancy may be a common survival strategy. To circumvent this, we applied (i) LIVE/DEAD differential staining coupled with microscopy, (ii) endospore enrichment, and (iii) selective depletion of DNA from dead cells to permafrost microbial communities across a Pleistocene permafrost chronosequence (19,000, 27,000, and 33,000 years old). Cell counts and analysis of 16S rRNA gene amplicons from live, dead, and dormant cells revealed how communities differ between these pools, how they are influenced by soil physicochemical properties, and whether they change over geologic time. We found evidence that cells capable of forming endospores are not necessarily dormant and that members of the class Bacilli were more likely to form endospores in response to long-term stressors associated with permafrost environmental conditions than members of the Clostridia, which were more likely to persist as vegetative cells in our older samples. We also found that removing exogenous “relic” DNA preserved within permafrost did not significantly alter microbial community composition. These results link the live, dead, and dormant microbial communities to physicochemical characteristics and provide insights into the survival of microbial communities in ancient permafrost. IMPORTANCE Permafrost soils store more than half of Earth’s soil carbon despite covering ∼15% of the land area (C. Tarnocai et al., Global Biogeochem Cycles 23:GB2023, 2009, ... Text permafrost PubMed Central (PMC) Applied and Environmental Microbiology 85 7 |
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English |
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Environmental Microbiology |
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Environmental Microbiology Burkert, Alexander Douglas, Thomas A. Waldrop, Mark P. Mackelprang, Rachel Changes in the Active, Dead, and Dormant Microbial Community Structure across a Pleistocene Permafrost Chronosequence |
topic_facet |
Environmental Microbiology |
description |
Permafrost hosts a community of microorganisms that survive and reproduce for millennia despite extreme environmental conditions, such as water stress, subzero temperatures, high salinity, and low nutrient availability. Many studies focused on permafrost microbial community composition use DNA-based methods, such as metagenomics and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. However, these methods do not distinguish among active, dead, and dormant cells. This is of particular concern in ancient permafrost, where constant subzero temperatures preserve DNA from dead organisms and dormancy may be a common survival strategy. To circumvent this, we applied (i) LIVE/DEAD differential staining coupled with microscopy, (ii) endospore enrichment, and (iii) selective depletion of DNA from dead cells to permafrost microbial communities across a Pleistocene permafrost chronosequence (19,000, 27,000, and 33,000 years old). Cell counts and analysis of 16S rRNA gene amplicons from live, dead, and dormant cells revealed how communities differ between these pools, how they are influenced by soil physicochemical properties, and whether they change over geologic time. We found evidence that cells capable of forming endospores are not necessarily dormant and that members of the class Bacilli were more likely to form endospores in response to long-term stressors associated with permafrost environmental conditions than members of the Clostridia, which were more likely to persist as vegetative cells in our older samples. We also found that removing exogenous “relic” DNA preserved within permafrost did not significantly alter microbial community composition. These results link the live, dead, and dormant microbial communities to physicochemical characteristics and provide insights into the survival of microbial communities in ancient permafrost. IMPORTANCE Permafrost soils store more than half of Earth’s soil carbon despite covering ∼15% of the land area (C. Tarnocai et al., Global Biogeochem Cycles 23:GB2023, 2009, ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Burkert, Alexander Douglas, Thomas A. Waldrop, Mark P. Mackelprang, Rachel |
author_facet |
Burkert, Alexander Douglas, Thomas A. Waldrop, Mark P. Mackelprang, Rachel |
author_sort |
Burkert, Alexander |
title |
Changes in the Active, Dead, and Dormant Microbial Community Structure across a Pleistocene Permafrost Chronosequence |
title_short |
Changes in the Active, Dead, and Dormant Microbial Community Structure across a Pleistocene Permafrost Chronosequence |
title_full |
Changes in the Active, Dead, and Dormant Microbial Community Structure across a Pleistocene Permafrost Chronosequence |
title_fullStr |
Changes in the Active, Dead, and Dormant Microbial Community Structure across a Pleistocene Permafrost Chronosequence |
title_full_unstemmed |
Changes in the Active, Dead, and Dormant Microbial Community Structure across a Pleistocene Permafrost Chronosequence |
title_sort |
changes in the active, dead, and dormant microbial community structure across a pleistocene permafrost chronosequence |
publisher |
American Society for Microbiology |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6585489/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30683748 https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02646-18 |
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permafrost |
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permafrost |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6585489/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30683748 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02646-18 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2019 Burkert et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.02646-18 |
container_title |
Applied and Environmental Microbiology |
container_volume |
85 |
container_issue |
7 |
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1766163406681800704 |