The Saint-Leonard Urban Glaciotectonic Cave Harbors Rich and Diverse Planktonic and Sedimentary Microbial Communities.

ABSTRACT: The terrestrial subsurface harbors unique microbial communities that play important biogeochemical roles and allow for studying a yet unknown fraction of the Earth's biodiversity. The Saint-Leonard cave in Montreal City (Canada) is of glaciotectonic origin. Its speleogenesis traces back to the withdrawal of the Laurentide Ice Sheet 13,000 years ago, during which the moving glacier dislocated the sedimentary rock layers. Our study is the first to investigate the microbial communities of the Saint-Leonard cave. By using amplicon sequencing, we analyzed the taxonomic diversity and composition of bacterial, archaeal and eukaryote communities living in the groundwater (0.1 µm- and 0.2 µm-filtered water), in the sediments and in surface soils. We identified a microbial biodiversity typical of ca

SUBMITTER: Lauzon J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11434022 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature