@thesis {4835, title = {Effect of climate history on the genetic structure of an Antarctic soil nematode}, volume = {MS}, year = {2022}, month = {12/2022}, school = {Brigham Young University}, type = {Master{\textquoteright}s thesis}, address = {Provo, UT, USA}, abstract = {

Historical climate disturbances such as glacial cycling and fluctuating stream, lake, and sea levels strongly influence the distribution and evolutionary trajectories of Antarctic terrestrial species. Antarctic invertebrates, with limited long-range mobility, including the ubiquitous sentinel nematode species Scottnema lindsayae, are especially sensitive to climate disturbances. We tested hypotheses associated with the historical geographic and population genetic structure of this species as it occurs across the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDVs) of Antarctica. In order to reconstruct the influence of climate disturbance and ecological conditions on this species, partial mitochondrial COI gene sequences were sequenced and analyzed from individual S. lindsayae collected from sites across the MDVs reflecting a opposing gradients of climate disturbance during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). We found that populations were strongly geomorphic barriers with distinct haplotypes associated with valleys except among valleys that experienced glacial advance and retreat during the LGM. One monophyletic clade corresponds with valley systems that were undisturbed during the LGM indicating putative refugia areas. A second monophyletic clade corresponds to recent dispersal and expansion of evolutionarily younger populations into valleys that were strongly reworked by glacial activity during the LGM. Our work shows that contemporary populations of these animals are strongly structured by prior climate history. Such findings can be useful for interpreting long-term monitoring of demographic shifts of soil organisms in response to changing climate trends in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, Antarctica, biogeography, climate disturbance, evolution, McMurdo Dry Valleys, polar, population genetics}, url = {http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd12622}, author = {Jackson, Abigail C.}, editor = {Adams, Byron J.} } @article {4636, title = {Exploring the boundaries of microbial habitability in soil}, journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences}, volume = {126}, year = {2021}, month = {06/2021}, abstract = {

Microbes are widely assumed to be capable of colonizing even the most challenging terrestrial surface environments on Earth given enough time. We would not expect to find surface soils uninhabited by microbes as soils typically harbor diverse microbial communities and viable microbes have been detected in soils exposed to even the most inhospitable conditions. However, if uninhabited soils do exist, we might expect to find them in Antarctica. We analyzed 204 ice-free soils collected from across a remote valley in the Transantarctic Mountains (84\–85\°S, 174\–177\°W) and were able to identify a potential limit of microbial habitability. While most of the soils we tested contained diverse microbial communities, with fungi being particularly ubiquitous, microbes could not be detected in many of the driest, higher elevation soils\—results that were confirmed using cultivation-dependent, cultivation-independent, and metabolic assays. While we cannot confirm that this subset of soils is completely sterile and devoid of microbial life, our results suggest that microbial life is severely restricted in the coldest, driest, and saltiest Antarctic soils. Constant exposure to these conditions for thousands of years has limited microbial communities so that their presence and activity is below detectable limits using a variety of standard methods. Such soils are unlikely to be unique to the studied region with this work supporting previous hypotheses that microbial habitability is constrained by near-continuous exposure to cold, dry, and salty conditions, establishing the environmental conditions that limit microbial life in terrestrial surface soils.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, Antarctica, astrobiology, bacteria, extremophiles, fungi, soils}, issn = {2169-8953}, doi = {10.1029/2020JG006052}, url = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020JG006052}, author = {Dragone, Nicholas B. and Melisa A. Diaz and Hogg, Ian D. and W. Berry Lyons and W. Andrew Jackson and Diana H. Wall and Adams, Byron J. and Noah Fierer} }