Characterization of Bacterial Communities in Arctic Soil

• Main Author: Uppal, Gursharan K
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Digital Commons @ TRU Library 2021
• Subjects: Arctic; Nunavut; Cambridge Bay
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.library.tru.ca/urc/2021/sessiona/5; https://digitalcommons.library.tru.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1642&context=urc

Environmental pollutants are found throughout the Arctic, but particularly in regions of recent human activity. These pollutants break down more slowly in the Arctic than in more temperate ecosystems as cold temperatures restrict microbial metabolism. Characterizing the microorganisms present in polluted Arctic soils will help us understand which microorganisms are involved in metabolizing these pollutants, and may help to inform strategies to remediate polluted sites. The aim of this project is to characterize and compare the composition of microbial communities in potentially contaminated Arctic soil samples. Soil samples were collected from several locations around Cambridge Bay, Nunavut in 2019. Total community DNA will be extracted from soil samples and the success of DNA extraction will be evaluated by agarose gel electrophoresis and quantification using the Qubit fluorometer. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting the bacterial 16sRNA gene will be completed on DNA extracts, and amplicons will be sequenced to characterize the bacterial community composition of samples. The sequence data will be processed in QIIME2 and statistical analyses comparing microbial community competition between samples will be completed in R. This research will provide information on the relative abundances of the types of bacteria present in samples from different contaminated Arctic soils. The results of the study will provide a baseline database of microbial diversity, and will improve our understanding of the diversity of the region and potential for microbial remediation of contaminated Arctic soils.