Understanding Permafrost Dynamics Using Metagenomics and Systems Biology

• Main Author: Barbato, Robyn A.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities 2019
• Subjects: Scientific Session Abstracts; Arctic; permafrost; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6938125/

Permafrost underlies 25% of earth's land surface. As temperatures warm, particularly in Alaska and across the Arctic, permafrost will thaw, dramatically altering landscapes and ecosystems. As permafrost thaws, soil microbes activate and through their metabolic processes, release carbon back into the atmosphere. In the laboratory, we subjected Alaskan permafrost samples to warming temperatures to mimic thaw. DNA was extracted from samples across the thaw regime and sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq. Shotgun sequencing revealed that the composition of microbes from the frozen state were different from those in the thawed state. Furthermore, the temperature, rather than the starting inoculum, influenced the thawed community composition. This has important implications for predictions of biochemical processes under warming conditions because different sets of permafrost will likely respond differently and these trajectories should be accounted for in the current models.