Microbial Diversity of Pinnacle and Conical Microbial Mats in the Perennially Ice-Covered Lake Untersee, East Antarctica
Antarctic perennially ice-covered lakes provide a stable low-disturbance environment where complex microbially mediated structures can grow. Lake Untersee, an ultra-oligotrophic lake in East Antarctica, has the lake floor covered in benthic microbial mat communities, where laminated organo-sedimenta...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7759091 2023-05-15T13:58:56+02:00 Microbial Diversity of Pinnacle and Conical Microbial Mats in the Perennially Ice-Covered Lake Untersee, East Antarctica Greco, Carla Andersen, Dale T. Hawes, Ian Bowles, Alexander M. C. Yallop, Marian L. Barker, Gary Jungblut, Anne D. 2020-12-10 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7759091/ https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.607251 en eng Frontiers Media S.A. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7759091/ http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.607251 Copyright © 2020 Greco, Andersen, Hawes, Bowles, Yallop, Barker and Jungblut. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. CC-BY Front Microbiol Microbiology Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.607251 2020-12-27T01:46:07Z Antarctic perennially ice-covered lakes provide a stable low-disturbance environment where complex microbially mediated structures can grow. Lake Untersee, an ultra-oligotrophic lake in East Antarctica, has the lake floor covered in benthic microbial mat communities, where laminated organo-sedimentary structures form with three distinct, sympatric morphologies: small, elongated cuspate pinnacles, large complex cones and flat mats. We examined the diversity of prokaryotes and eukaryotes in pinnacles, cones and flat microbial mats using high-throughput sequencing of 16S and 18S rRNA genes and assessed how microbial composition may underpin the formation of these distinct macroscopic mat morphologies under the same environmental conditions. Our analysis identified distinct clustering of microbial communities according to mat morphology. The prokaryotic communities were dominated by Cyanobacteria, Proteobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Planctomycetes, and Actinobacteria. While filamentous Tychonema cyanobacteria were common in all mat types, Leptolyngbya showed an increased relative abundance in the pinnacle structures only. Our study provides the first report of the eukaryotic community structure of Lake Untersee benthic mats, which was dominated by Ciliophora, Chlorophyta, Fungi, Cercozoa, and Discicristata. The eukaryote richness was lower than for prokaryote assemblages and no distinct clustering was observed between mat morphologies. These findings suggest that cyanobacterial assemblages and potentially other bacteria and eukaryotes may influence structure morphogenesis, allowing distinct structures to form across a small spatial scale. Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic East Antarctica Pinnacle ENVELOPE(-54.900,-54.900,-61.067,-61.067) Untersee ENVELOPE(13.467,13.467,-71.350,-71.350) Frontiers in Microbiology 11 |
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English |
topic |
Microbiology |
spellingShingle |
Microbiology Greco, Carla Andersen, Dale T. Hawes, Ian Bowles, Alexander M. C. Yallop, Marian L. Barker, Gary Jungblut, Anne D. Microbial Diversity of Pinnacle and Conical Microbial Mats in the Perennially Ice-Covered Lake Untersee, East Antarctica |
topic_facet |
Microbiology |
description |
Antarctic perennially ice-covered lakes provide a stable low-disturbance environment where complex microbially mediated structures can grow. Lake Untersee, an ultra-oligotrophic lake in East Antarctica, has the lake floor covered in benthic microbial mat communities, where laminated organo-sedimentary structures form with three distinct, sympatric morphologies: small, elongated cuspate pinnacles, large complex cones and flat mats. We examined the diversity of prokaryotes and eukaryotes in pinnacles, cones and flat microbial mats using high-throughput sequencing of 16S and 18S rRNA genes and assessed how microbial composition may underpin the formation of these distinct macroscopic mat morphologies under the same environmental conditions. Our analysis identified distinct clustering of microbial communities according to mat morphology. The prokaryotic communities were dominated by Cyanobacteria, Proteobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Planctomycetes, and Actinobacteria. While filamentous Tychonema cyanobacteria were common in all mat types, Leptolyngbya showed an increased relative abundance in the pinnacle structures only. Our study provides the first report of the eukaryotic community structure of Lake Untersee benthic mats, which was dominated by Ciliophora, Chlorophyta, Fungi, Cercozoa, and Discicristata. The eukaryote richness was lower than for prokaryote assemblages and no distinct clustering was observed between mat morphologies. These findings suggest that cyanobacterial assemblages and potentially other bacteria and eukaryotes may influence structure morphogenesis, allowing distinct structures to form across a small spatial scale. |
format |
Text |
author |
Greco, Carla Andersen, Dale T. Hawes, Ian Bowles, Alexander M. C. Yallop, Marian L. Barker, Gary Jungblut, Anne D. |
author_facet |
Greco, Carla Andersen, Dale T. Hawes, Ian Bowles, Alexander M. C. Yallop, Marian L. Barker, Gary Jungblut, Anne D. |
author_sort |
Greco, Carla |
title |
Microbial Diversity of Pinnacle and Conical Microbial Mats in the Perennially Ice-Covered Lake Untersee, East Antarctica |
title_short |
Microbial Diversity of Pinnacle and Conical Microbial Mats in the Perennially Ice-Covered Lake Untersee, East Antarctica |
title_full |
Microbial Diversity of Pinnacle and Conical Microbial Mats in the Perennially Ice-Covered Lake Untersee, East Antarctica |
title_fullStr |
Microbial Diversity of Pinnacle and Conical Microbial Mats in the Perennially Ice-Covered Lake Untersee, East Antarctica |
title_full_unstemmed |
Microbial Diversity of Pinnacle and Conical Microbial Mats in the Perennially Ice-Covered Lake Untersee, East Antarctica |
title_sort |
microbial diversity of pinnacle and conical microbial mats in the perennially ice-covered lake untersee, east antarctica |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7759091/ https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.607251 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-54.900,-54.900,-61.067,-61.067) ENVELOPE(13.467,13.467,-71.350,-71.350) |
geographic |
Antarctic East Antarctica Pinnacle Untersee |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic East Antarctica Pinnacle Untersee |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica |
op_source |
Front Microbiol |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7759091/ http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.607251 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2020 Greco, Andersen, Hawes, Bowles, Yallop, Barker and Jungblut. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.607251 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Microbiology |
container_volume |
11 |
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1766267307293671424 |