Abstract
Cyanobacteria are major components of Antarctic Dry Valley ecosystems. Their occurrence in lakes and ponds is well documented, however, less is known about their distribution in edaphic environments. There has been considerable debate about the contribution of aquatic organic matter derived largely from cyanobacteria to terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, automated rRNA intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) and 16S rRNA gene clone libraries were used to investigate cyanobacterial diversity in a range of soil environments within the Miers and Beacon Valleys. These data were used to elucidate the input of aquatic cyanobacteria to soil communities. Thirty-eight samples were collected from a variety of soil environments including dry and moist soils, hypoliths and lake and hydroterrestrial microbial mats. The results from the ARISA and 16S rRNA clone library analysis demonstrated that diverse cyanobacterial communities exist within the mineral soils of the Miers Valley. The soil samples from Beacon Valley were depauparate in cyanobacterial signals. Within Miers Valley, significant portions (29%–58%) of ARISA fragment lengths found in aquatic cyanobacterial mats were also present in soil and hypolith samples, indicating that lacustrine and hydroterrestrial cyanobacteria play a significant role in structuring soil communities. The influence of abiotic variables on the community structure of soil samples was assessed using BEST analysis. The results of BEST analysis of samples from within Miers Valley showed that total percentage of carbon content was the most important variable in explaining differences in cyanobacterial community structure. The BEST analyses indicated that four elements contributed significantly to species compositional differences between valleys. We suggest that the complete absence of lakes or ponds from Beacon Valley is a contributing factor to the low cyanobacterial component of these soils.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Antarctica New Zealand for logistic support to SCC and DAC. The research was also partially supported through a grant from the National Science Foundation (OPP-0229836 and EPSCoR-0447610) to SCC. We especially thank Steve Cameron and Anjana Rajendram (Waikato University) for assistance with soil chemistry analysis. We are indebted to Lisa Robson (Waikato University) and Stephanie Burton (University of Cape Town) for field assistance. SAW thanks the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology for post-doctoral fellowship funding (CAWX0501). Dean Olsen (Cawthron Institute) is gratefully acknowledged for assistance with statistical analysis.
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Wood, S., Rueckert, A., Cowan, D. et al. Sources of edaphic cyanobacterial diversity in the Dry Valleys of Eastern Antarctica. ISME J 2, 308–320 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2007.104
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2007.104
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