@article {4943, title = {Strong dispersal limitation of microbial communities at Shackleton Glacier, Antarctica}, journal = {mSystems}, volume = {8}, year = {2023}, month = {01/2023}, abstract = {

Microbial communities can be structured by both deterministic and stochastic processes, but the relative importance of these processes remains unknown. The ambiguity partly arises from an inability to disentangle soil microbial processes from confounding factors, such as aboveground plant communities or anthropogenic disturbance. In this study, we characterized the relative contributions of determinism and stochasticity to assembly processes of soil bacterial communities across a large environmental gradient of undisturbed Antarctic soils. We hypothesized that harsh soils would impose a strong environmental selection on microbial communities, whereas communities in benign soils would be structured largely by dispersal. Contrary to our expectations, dispersal was the dominant assembly mechanism across the entire soil environmental gradient, including benign environments. The microbial community composition reflects slowly changing soil conditions and dispersal limitation of isolated sites. Thus, stochastic processes, as opposed to deterministic, are primary drivers of soil ecosystem assembly across space at our study site. This is especially surprising given the strong environmental constraints on soil microorganisms in one of the harshest environments on the planet, suggesting that dispersal could be a driving force in microbial community assembly in soils worldwide.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, community assembly, determinism, dispersal, niche, stochasticity}, doi = {10.1128/msystems.01254-22}, url = {https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/msystems.01254-22}, author = {Lemoine, Nathan P. and Byron Adams and Melisa A. Diaz and Dragone, Nicholas B. and Franco, Andr{\'e} L. C. and Noah Fierer and W. Berry Lyons and Hogg, Ian D. and Diana H. Wall}, editor = {Lurgi, Miguel} } @article {4689, title = {Response of Antarctic soil fauna to climate-driven changes since the Last Glacial Maximum}, journal = {Global Change Biology}, volume = {28}, year = {2022}, month = {01/2022}, abstract = {

Understanding how terrestrial biotic communities have responded to glacial recession since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) can inform present and future responses of biota to climate change. In Antarctica, the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) have experienced massive environmental changes associated with glacial retreat since the LGM, yet we have few clues as to how its soil invertebrate-dominated animal communities have responded. Here, we surveyed soil invertebrate fauna from above and below proposed LGM elevations along transects located at 12 features across the Shackleton Glacier region. Our transects captured gradients of surface ages possibly up to 4.5 million years and the soils have been free from human disturbance for their entire history. Our data support the hypothesis that soils exposed during the LGM are now less suitable habitats for invertebrates than those that have been exposed by deglaciation following the LGM. Our results show that faunal abundance, community composition, and diversity were all strongly affected by climate-driven changes since the LGM. Soils more recently exposed by glacial recession (as indicated by distances from present ice surfaces) had higher faunal abundances and species richness than older exposed soils. Higher abundances of the dominant nematode Scottnema were found in older exposed soils, while Eudorylaimus, Plectus, tardigrades, and rotifers preferentially occurred in more recently exposed soils. Approximately 30\% of the soils from which invertebrates could be extracted had only Scottnema, and these single-taxon communities occurred more frequently in soils exposed for longer periods of time. Our structural equation modeling of abiotic drivers highlighted soil salinity as a key mediator of Scottnema responses to soil exposure age. These changes in soil habitat suitability and biotic communities since the LGM indicate that Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity throughout the TAM will be highly altered by climate warming.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, biodiversity, climate change, glacial retreat, nematodes, Shackleton Glacier, soil invertebrates}, issn = {1354-1013}, doi = {10.1111/gcb.15940}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15940}, author = {Franco, Andr{\'e} L. C. and Byron Adams and Melisa A. Diaz and Lemoine, Nathan P. and Dragone, Nicholas B. and Noah Fierer and W. Berry Lyons and Hogg, Ian D. and Diana H. Wall} }