Influence of soil properties on archaeal diversity and distribution in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

Archaea are the least understood members of the microbial community in Antarctic mineral soils. Although their occurrence in Antarctic coastal soils has been previously documented, little is known about their distribution in soils across the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Victoria Land. In this study, termina...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:FEMS Microbiology Ecology
Main Authors: Richter, Ingrid, Herbold, Craig W., Lee, Charles Kai-Wu, McDonald, Ian R., Barrett, John E., Cary, S. Craig
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2014
Subjects:
Antarctic soils
Archaea
Euryarchaeota
Thaumarchaeota
pyrosequencing
Antarctic
Garwood
McMurdo Dry Valleys
Miers
Miers Valley
Victoria Land
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10289/8933
https://doi.org/10.1111/1574-6941.12322
Description
Summary:Archaea are the least understood members of the microbial community in Antarctic mineral soils. Although their occurrence in Antarctic coastal soils has been previously documented, little is known about their distribution in soils across the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Victoria Land. In this study, terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (t-RFLP) analysis and 454 pyrosequencing were coupled with a detailed analysis of soil physicochemical properties to characterize archaeal diversity and identify environmental factors that might shape and maintain archaeal communities in soils of the three southern most McMurdo Dry Valleys (Garwood, Marshall, and Miers Valley). Archaea were successfully detected in all inland and coastal mineral soils tested, revealing a low overall richness (mean of six operational taxonomic units [OTUs] per sample site). However, OTU richness was higher in some soils and this higher richness was positively correlated with soil water content, indicating water as a main driver of archaeal community richness. In total, 18 archaeal OTUs were detected, predominately Thaumarchaeota affiliated with Marine Group 1.1b (> 80% of all archaeal sequences recovered). Less abundant OTUs (2% of all archaeal sequences) were loosely related to members of the phylum Euryarchaeota. This is the first comprehensive study showing a widespread presence and distribution of Archaea in inland Antarctic soils.

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