@article {4759, title = {Limits to the three domains of life: Lessons from community assembly along an Antarctic salinity gradient}, journal = {Extremophiles}, volume = {26}, year = {2022}, month = {04/2022}, pages = {15}, abstract = {

Extremophiles exist among all three domains of life; however, physiological mechanisms for surviving harsh environmental conditions differ among Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya. Consequently, we expect that domain-specific variation of diversity and community assembly patterns exist along environmental gradients in extreme environments. We investigated inter-domain community compositional differences along a high-elevation salinity gradient in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Conductivity for 24 soil samples collected along the gradient ranged widely from 50 to 8355 \µS cm-1. Taxonomic richness varied among domains, with a total of 359 bacterial, 2 archaeal, 56 fungal, and 69 non-fungal eukaryotic operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Richness for bacteria, archaea, fungi, and non-fungal eukaryotes declined with increasing conductivity (all P\ \<\ 0.05). Principal coordinate ordination analysis (PCoA) revealed significant (ANOSIM R\ =\ 0.97) groupings of low/high salinity bacterial OTUs, while OTUs from other domains were not significantly clustered. Bacterial beta diversity was unimodally distributed along the gradient and had a nested structure driven by species losses, whereas in fungi and non-fungal eukaryotes beta diversity declined monotonically without strong evidence of nestedness. Thus, while increased salinity acts as a stressor in all domains, the mechanisms driving community assembly along the gradient differ substantially between the domains.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, Antarctica, inter-domain response, McMurdo Dry Valleys, salinity, species richness patterns}, doi = {10.1007/s00792-022-01262-3}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00792-022-01262-3}, author = {Jiang, Xiaoben and David J. Van Horn and Okie, Jordan G. and Heather N. Buelow and Schwartz, Egbert and Colman, Daniel R. and Feeser, Kelli L. and Cristina D. Takacs-Vesbach} } @article {3958, title = {Patterns of bacterial biodiversity in the glacial meltwater streams of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica}, journal = {FEMS Microbiology Ecology}, volume = {92}, year = {2016}, month = {08/2016}, pages = {fiw148}, abstract = {

Microbial consortia dominate glacial meltwater streams from polar regions, including the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV), where they thrive under physiologically stressful conditions. In this study, we examined microbial mat types and sediments found in 12 hydrologically diverse streams to describe the community diversity and composition within and across sites. Sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene from 129 samples revealed \∼24 000 operational taxonomic units (\<97\% DNA similarity), making streams the most biodiverse habitat in the MDV. Principal coordinate analyses revealed significant but weak clustering by mat type across all streams (ANOSIM R-statistic = 0.28) but stronger clustering within streams (ANOSIM R-statistic from 0.28 to 0.94). Significant relationships (P \< 0.05) were found between bacterial diversity and mat ash-free dry mass, suggesting that diversity is related to the hydrologic regimes of the various streams, which are predictive of mat biomass. However, correlations between stream chemistry and community members were weak, possibly reflecting the importance of internal processes and hydrologic conditions. Collectively, these results suggest that localized conditions dictate bacterial community composition of the same mat types and sediments from different streams, and while MDV streams are hotspots of biodiversity in an otherwise depauperate landscape, controls on community structure are complex and site specific.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM}, doi = {10.1093/femsec/fiw148}, url = {http://femsec.oxfordjournals.org/lookup/doi/10.1093/femsec/fiw148}, author = {David J. Van Horn and Wolf, Caitlin R. and Colman, Daniel R. and Jiang, Xiaoben and Tyler J. Kohler and Diane M. McKnight and Lee F. Stanish and Yazzie, Terrill and Cristina D. Takacs-Vesbach} }