Impact of meltwater flow intensity on the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of microbial mats in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica
The meltwater streams of the McMurdo Dry Valleys are hot spots of biological diversity in the climate-sensitive polar desert landscape. Microbial mats, largely comprised of cyanobacteria, dominate the streams which flow for a brief window of time (~10 weeks) over the austral summer. These communitie...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9870883 2023-05-15T13:55:18+02:00 Impact of meltwater flow intensity on the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of microbial mats in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica Zoumplis, A. Kolody, B. Kaul, D. Zheng, H. Venepally, P. McKnight, D. M. Takacs-Vesbach, C. DeVries, A. Allen, A. E. 2023-01-23 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9870883/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36690784 https://doi.org/10.1038/s43705-022-00202-8 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9870883/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36690784 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43705-022-00202-8 © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY ISME Commun Article Text 2023 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s43705-022-00202-8 2023-01-29T02:14:11Z The meltwater streams of the McMurdo Dry Valleys are hot spots of biological diversity in the climate-sensitive polar desert landscape. Microbial mats, largely comprised of cyanobacteria, dominate the streams which flow for a brief window of time (~10 weeks) over the austral summer. These communities, critical to nutrient and carbon cycling, display previously uncharacterized patterns of rapid destabilization and recovery upon exposure to variable and physiologically detrimental conditions. Here, we characterize changes in biodiversity, transcriptional responses and activity of microbial mats in response to hydrological disturbance over spatiotemporal gradients. While diverse metabolic strategies persist between marginal mats and main channel mats, data collected from 4 time points during the austral summer revealed a homogenization of the mat communities during the mid-season peak meltwater flow, directly influencing the biogeochemical roles of this stream ecosystem. Gene expression pattern analyses identified strong functional sensitivities of nitrogen-fixing marginal mats to changes in hydrological activities. Stress response markers detailed the environmental challenges of each microhabitat and the molecular mechanisms underpinning survival in a polar desert ecosystem at the forefront of climate change. At mid and end points in the flow cycle, mobile genetic elements were upregulated across all mat types indicating high degrees of genome evolvability and transcriptional synchronies. Additionally, we identified novel antifreeze activity in the stream microbial mats indicating the presence of ice-binding proteins (IBPs). Cumulatively, these data provide a new view of active intra-stream diversity, biotic interactions and alterations in ecosystem function over a high-flow hydrological regime. Text Antarc* Antarctica McMurdo Dry Valleys polar desert PubMed Central (PMC) Austral McMurdo Dry Valleys ISME Communications 3 1 |
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Article Zoumplis, A. Kolody, B. Kaul, D. Zheng, H. Venepally, P. McKnight, D. M. Takacs-Vesbach, C. DeVries, A. Allen, A. E. Impact of meltwater flow intensity on the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of microbial mats in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica |
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Article |
description |
The meltwater streams of the McMurdo Dry Valleys are hot spots of biological diversity in the climate-sensitive polar desert landscape. Microbial mats, largely comprised of cyanobacteria, dominate the streams which flow for a brief window of time (~10 weeks) over the austral summer. These communities, critical to nutrient and carbon cycling, display previously uncharacterized patterns of rapid destabilization and recovery upon exposure to variable and physiologically detrimental conditions. Here, we characterize changes in biodiversity, transcriptional responses and activity of microbial mats in response to hydrological disturbance over spatiotemporal gradients. While diverse metabolic strategies persist between marginal mats and main channel mats, data collected from 4 time points during the austral summer revealed a homogenization of the mat communities during the mid-season peak meltwater flow, directly influencing the biogeochemical roles of this stream ecosystem. Gene expression pattern analyses identified strong functional sensitivities of nitrogen-fixing marginal mats to changes in hydrological activities. Stress response markers detailed the environmental challenges of each microhabitat and the molecular mechanisms underpinning survival in a polar desert ecosystem at the forefront of climate change. At mid and end points in the flow cycle, mobile genetic elements were upregulated across all mat types indicating high degrees of genome evolvability and transcriptional synchronies. Additionally, we identified novel antifreeze activity in the stream microbial mats indicating the presence of ice-binding proteins (IBPs). Cumulatively, these data provide a new view of active intra-stream diversity, biotic interactions and alterations in ecosystem function over a high-flow hydrological regime. |
format |
Text |
author |
Zoumplis, A. Kolody, B. Kaul, D. Zheng, H. Venepally, P. McKnight, D. M. Takacs-Vesbach, C. DeVries, A. Allen, A. E. |
author_facet |
Zoumplis, A. Kolody, B. Kaul, D. Zheng, H. Venepally, P. McKnight, D. M. Takacs-Vesbach, C. DeVries, A. Allen, A. E. |
author_sort |
Zoumplis, A. |
title |
Impact of meltwater flow intensity on the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of microbial mats in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica |
title_short |
Impact of meltwater flow intensity on the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of microbial mats in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica |
title_full |
Impact of meltwater flow intensity on the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of microbial mats in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica |
title_fullStr |
Impact of meltwater flow intensity on the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of microbial mats in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica |
title_full_unstemmed |
Impact of meltwater flow intensity on the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of microbial mats in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica |
title_sort |
impact of meltwater flow intensity on the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of microbial mats in the mcmurdo dry valleys, antarctica |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9870883/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36690784 https://doi.org/10.1038/s43705-022-00202-8 |
geographic |
Austral McMurdo Dry Valleys |
geographic_facet |
Austral McMurdo Dry Valleys |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica McMurdo Dry Valleys polar desert |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica McMurdo Dry Valleys polar desert |
op_source |
ISME Commun |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9870883/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36690784 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43705-022-00202-8 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43705-022-00202-8 |
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