Microbial communities in the subglacial waters of the Vatnajokull ice cap, Iceland
(2013) In The Isme Journal 7(2). p.427-437- Abstract
- Subglacial lakes beneath the Vatnajokull ice cap in Iceland host endemic communities of microorganisms adapted to cold, dark and nutrient-poor waters, but the mechanisms by which these microbes disseminate under the ice and colonize these lakes are unknown. We present new data on this subglacial microbiome generated from samples of two subglacial lakes, a subglacial flood and a lake that was formerly subglacial but now partly exposed to the atmosphere. These data include parallel 16S rRNA gene amplicon libraries constructed using novel primers that span the v3-v5 and v4-v6 hypervariable regions. Archaea were not detected in either subglacial lake, and the communities are dominated by only five bacterial taxa. Our paired libraries are... (More)
- Subglacial lakes beneath the Vatnajokull ice cap in Iceland host endemic communities of microorganisms adapted to cold, dark and nutrient-poor waters, but the mechanisms by which these microbes disseminate under the ice and colonize these lakes are unknown. We present new data on this subglacial microbiome generated from samples of two subglacial lakes, a subglacial flood and a lake that was formerly subglacial but now partly exposed to the atmosphere. These data include parallel 16S rRNA gene amplicon libraries constructed using novel primers that span the v3-v5 and v4-v6 hypervariable regions. Archaea were not detected in either subglacial lake, and the communities are dominated by only five bacterial taxa. Our paired libraries are highly concordant for the most abundant taxa, but estimates of diversity (abundance-based coverage estimator) in the v4-v6 libraries are 3-8 times higher than in corresponding v3-v5 libraries. The dominant taxa are closely related to cultivated anaerobes and microaerobes, and may occupy unique metabolic niches in a chemoautolithotrophic ecosystem. The populations of the major taxa in the subglacial lakes are indistinguishable (>99% sequence identity), despite separation by 6 km and an ice divide; one taxon is ubiquitous in our Vatnajokull samples. We propose that the glacial bed is connected through an aquifer in the underlying permeable basalt, and these subglacial lakes are colonized from a deeper, subterranean microbiome. The ISME Journal (2013) 7, 427-437; doi:10.1038/ismej.2012.97; published online 13 September 2012 (Less)
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https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/3761091
- author
- organization
- publishing date
- 2013
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- acetogenesis, astrobiology, extreme environments, psychrophiles, pyrosequencing, subglacial lakes
- in
- The Isme Journal
- volume
- 7
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 427 - 437
- publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000316723300019
- scopus:84872935229
- pmid:22975882
- ISSN
- 1751-7362
- DOI
- 10.1038/ismej.2012.97
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 93d84309-cebd-45fc-814f-333f45dcfe21 (old id 3761091)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 10:09:18
- date last changed
- 2022-01-25 20:14:18
@article{93d84309-cebd-45fc-814f-333f45dcfe21,
abstract = {{Subglacial lakes beneath the Vatnajokull ice cap in Iceland host endemic communities of microorganisms adapted to cold, dark and nutrient-poor waters, but the mechanisms by which these microbes disseminate under the ice and colonize these lakes are unknown. We present new data on this subglacial microbiome generated from samples of two subglacial lakes, a subglacial flood and a lake that was formerly subglacial but now partly exposed to the atmosphere. These data include parallel 16S rRNA gene amplicon libraries constructed using novel primers that span the v3-v5 and v4-v6 hypervariable regions. Archaea were not detected in either subglacial lake, and the communities are dominated by only five bacterial taxa. Our paired libraries are highly concordant for the most abundant taxa, but estimates of diversity (abundance-based coverage estimator) in the v4-v6 libraries are 3-8 times higher than in corresponding v3-v5 libraries. The dominant taxa are closely related to cultivated anaerobes and microaerobes, and may occupy unique metabolic niches in a chemoautolithotrophic ecosystem. The populations of the major taxa in the subglacial lakes are indistinguishable (>99% sequence identity), despite separation by 6 km and an ice divide; one taxon is ubiquitous in our Vatnajokull samples. We propose that the glacial bed is connected through an aquifer in the underlying permeable basalt, and these subglacial lakes are colonized from a deeper, subterranean microbiome. The ISME Journal (2013) 7, 427-437; doi:10.1038/ismej.2012.97; published online 13 September 2012}},
author = {{Marteinsson, Viggo Thor and Runarsson, Arni and Stefansson, Andri and Thorsteinsson, Thorsteinn and Johannesson, Tomas and Magnusson, Sveinn H. and Reynisson, Eyjolfur and Einarsson, Bergur and Wade, Nicole and Morrison, Hilary G. and Gaidos, Eric}},
issn = {{1751-7362}},
keywords = {{acetogenesis; astrobiology; extreme environments; psychrophiles; pyrosequencing; subglacial lakes}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{427--437}},
publisher = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
series = {{The Isme Journal}},
title = {{Microbial communities in the subglacial waters of the Vatnajokull ice cap, Iceland}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2012.97}},
doi = {{10.1038/ismej.2012.97}},
volume = {{7}},
year = {{2013}},
}