Micro-eukaryotic diversity in hypolithons from Miers Valley, Antarctica
The discovery of extensive and complex hypolithic communities in both cold and hot deserts has raised many questions regarding their ecology, biodiversity and relevance in terms of regional productivity. However, most hypolithic research has focused on the bacterial elements of the community. This s...
| Published in: | Biology |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI online quarterly
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/2263/21347 https://doi.org/10.3390/biology2010331 |
| Summary: | The discovery of extensive and complex hypolithic communities in both cold and hot deserts has raised many questions regarding their ecology, biodiversity and relevance in terms of regional productivity. However, most hypolithic research has focused on the bacterial elements of the community. This study represents the first investigation of micro-eukaryotic communities in all three hypolith types. Here we show that Antarctic hypoliths support extensive populations of novel uncharacterized bryophyta, fungi and protists and suggest that well known producer-decomposer-predator interactions may create the necessary conditions for hypolithic productivity in Antarctic deserts. The authors gratefully acknowledge the National Research Foundation (South Africa) and Antarctica New Zealand for support of this research. www.mdpi.com/journal/biology am2013 |
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