@article {4935, title = {Sentinel protist taxa of the McMurdo Dry Valley lakes, Antarctica: A review}, journal = {Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution}, volume = {12}, year = {2024}, month = {03/2024}, pages = {1323472}, abstract = {

High-latitude meromictic lakes such as those in the Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) harbor aquatic ecosystems dominated by the microbial loop. Within this habitat, which is limited year-round by light and nutrients, protists, or single celled eukaryotes, play outsized roles in the food web as the dominant primary producers and the apex predators. Thus, the MDV lake ecosystem represents an ideal system to study the role of sentinel protist taxa in carbon and nutrient cycling. The perennially ice-covered lakes are part of the McMurdo Long Term Ecological Research (McM LTER; mcmlter.org) established in 1993. In this review we will highlight the diversity and trophic roles of the MDV lake protist community and compare environmental factors driving spatiotemporal patterns in key protist taxa in two lakes within the McM LTER, Lakes Bonney and Fryxell. We will then discuss lessons learned from manipulated experiments on the impact of current and future climate-driven environmental change on sensitive protist taxa. Last, we will integrate knowledge gained from 25 years of lab-controlled experiments on key photosynthetic protists to extend our understanding of the function of these extremophiles within the MDV aquatic food webs. Our research group has studied the distribution and function of the MDV microbial community for nearly two decades, training the next generation of scientists to tackle future problems of these globally significant microbes. This review article will also highlight early career scientists who have contributed to this body of work and represent the future of scientific understanding in the Anthropocene.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, Antarctica, Disturbance, McMurdo Dry Valley lakes, phytoplankton, protist}, doi = {10.3389/fevo.2024.1323472}, url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2024.1323472}, author = {Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss and Popson, Devon and Pereira, Rochelle and Dolhi-Binder, J and Teufel, Amber G. and Li, Wei and Kalra, Isha and Sherwell, Shasten S. and Reynebeau, Emily and Cristina D. Takacs-Vesbach} } @article {4814, title = {Antarctic lake phytoplankton and bacteria from near-surface waters exhibit high sensitivity to climate-driven disturbance}, journal = {Environmental Microbiology}, year = {2022}, month = {07/2022}, abstract = {

The McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDVs), Antarctica, represent a cold, desert ecosystem poised on the threshold of melting and freezing water. The MDVs have experienced dramatic signs of climatic change, most notably a warm austral summer in 2001\–2002 that caused widespread flooding, partial ice cover loss and lake level rise. To understand the impact of these climatic disturbances on lake microbial communities, we simulated lake level rise and ice-cover loss by transplanting dialysis-bagged communities from selected depths to other locations in the water column or to an open water perimeter moat. Bacteria and eukaryote communities residing in the surface waters (5 m) exhibited shifts in community composition when exposed to either disturbance, while microbial communities from below the surface were largely unaffected by the transplant. We also observed an accumulation of labile dissolved organic carbon in the transplanted surface communities. In addition, there were taxa-specific sensitivities: cryptophytes and Actinobacteria were highly sensitive particularly to the moat transplant, while chlorophytes and several bacterial taxa increased in relative abundance or were unaffected. Our results reveal that future climate-driven disturbances will likely undermine the stability and productivity of MDV lake phytoplankton and bacterial communities in the surface waters of this extreme environment.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM}, doi = {10.1111/1462-2920.16113}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1462-2920.16113}, author = {Sherwell, Shasten S. and Kalra, Isha and Li, Wei and Diane M. McKnight and John C. Priscu and Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss} } @mastersthesis {4628, title = {Response of microbial communities to climatic disturbances in Lake Bonney, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica}, volume = {M.S.}, year = {2020}, month = {2020}, school = {Miami University}, type = {masters}, address = {Oxford, OH}, abstract = {

The McMurdo Dry Valleys is a polar desert ecosystem which composes the largest ice-free area in Antarctica, with the exception of perennially ice-covered lakes and ponds. The lakes in the valleys are the only landscape unit that support metabolic activity year-round. Recent increases in air temperature and solar radiation have led to a chain of disturbances altering the environmental conditions of these lakes. In this study, we test the impact of climatic disturbances on microbial communities in Lake Bonney, one of the lakes in the MDV. Through an integrated approach of combining field studies on natural communities in the lake (in situ) and laboratory experiments on algal isolates (ex situ), this study will attempt to understand how phytoplankton, eukaryal and bacterial communities respond to simulated disturbances. Results from the in situ experiments showed that the moat is a unique and stressful environment for under-ice communities and that under-ice shallow communities are highly sensitive to climatic disturbances. The ex situ experiments showed that certain phytoplankton species, like the chlorophytes, are more resistant to environmental alterations and thus will outcompete other phytoplankton species.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, climate change, McMurdo Dry Valleys, microbial communities, phytoplankton}, url = {http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1595958688364877}, author = {Sherwell, Shasten S. and Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss} }