Airborne bacterial populations above desert soils of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica.

ABSTRACT: Bacteria are assumed to disperse widely via aerosolized transport due to their small size and resilience. The question of microbial endemicity in isolated populations is directly related to the level of airborne exogenous inputs, yet this has proven hard to identify. The ice-free terrestrial ecosystem of Antarctica, a geographically and climatically isolated continent, was used to interrogate microbial bio-aerosols in relation to the surrounding ecology and climate. High-throughput sequencing of bacterial ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes was combined with analyses of climate patterns during an austral summer. In general terms, the aerosols were dominated by Firmicutes, whereas surrounding soils supported Actinobacteria-dominated communities. The most abundant taxa were also common to aerosols fr

SUBMITTER: Bottos EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3907674 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature