Stochastic and Deterministic Effects of a Moisture Gradient on Soil Microbial Communities in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica.

ABSTRACT: Antarctic soil supports surface microbial communities that are dependent on ephemeral moisture. Understanding the response to availability of this resource is essential to predicting how the system will respond to climate change. The McMurdo Dry Valleys are the largest ice-free soil region in Antarctica. They are a hyper-arid polar desert with extremely limited moisture availability. Microbial colonization dominates this ecosystem but surprisingly little is known about how communities respond to changing moisture regimes. We utilized the natural model system provided by transiently wetted soil at lake margins in the Dry Valleys to interrogate microbial responses along a well-defined contiguous moisture gradient and disentangle responses between and within phyla. We identified a striking no

SUBMITTER: Lee KC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6225844 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature