02435nas a2200277   4500008004100000245011000041210006900151260001200220300000700232490000700239520155100246653001501797653002601812653002401838653001301862653003001875100001901905700002401924700002101948700002401969700002101993700002302014700002202037700003302059856006502092       2022                        eng d00aLimits to the three domains of life: Lessons from community assembly along an Antarctic salinity gradient0 aLimits to the three domains of life Lessons from community assem  c04/2022  a150 v263 a<p>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 &micro;S cm<sup>-1</sup>. 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 <em>P</em>&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.05). Principal coordinate ordination analysis (PCoA) revealed significant (ANOSIM <em>R</em>&thinsp;=&thinsp;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.</p>10aAntarctica10ainter-domain response10aMcMurdo Dry Valleys10asalinity10aspecies richness patterns1 aJiang, Xiaoben1 aVan Horn, David, J.1 aOkie, Jordan, G.1 aBuelow, Heather, N.1 aSchwartz, Egbert1 aColman, Daniel, R.1 aFeeser, Kelli, L.1 aTakacs-Vesbach, Cristina, D.  uhttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00792-022-01262-3