scholarly journals Spatial and Temporal Variability of Microbial Communities and Salt Distributions Across an Aridity Gradient Before and After Heavy Rains in the Atacama Desert

Author(s):  
Jianxun Shen ◽  
Timothy Shirey ◽  
Adam Wyness ◽  
Mark Claire ◽  
Aubrey Zerkle

Over the past 150 million years, the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert has been transformed by geologic and atmospheric conditions into one of the most unique and inhospitable landscapes on the planet. This makes it an ideal Mars analog that has been explored for decades as preliminary studies on the space life discovery. However, two heavy rainfalls that occurred in the Atacama in 2015 and 2017 provide a unique opportunity to study the response of resident extremophiles to rapid environmental change associated with excessive water and salt shock. Here we combine geochemical analyses with molecular biology to study the variations in salts and microbial communities along an aridity gradient, and to examine the reshuffling of hyperarid microbiomes before and after the two rainfall events. Analysis of microbial community composition revealed that soils within the southern desert were consistently dominated by Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Planctomycetes, Chloroflexi, Bacteroidetes, Gemmatimonadetes, and Verrucomicrobia; soils within the hyperarid sites were dominated by Aquificae and Deinococcus-Thermus before heavy rainfalls, while these organisms almost totally diminished after rainfall, and the hyperarid microbial consortia and metabolisms transformed to a more southern desert pattern along with increased biodiversity. Salts at the shallow subsurface were dissolved and leached down to a deeper layer, both benefitting and challenging indigenous microorganisms with the excessive input of water and ions. Microbial viability was found to change with aridity and rainfall events but correlated with elevation, pH, conductivity, chloride, nitrate, sulfate, and soil organic matters (SOM). Metagenomic functional pathways related to stressor responses also increased in post-rainfall hyperarid soils. Our findings contribute to the primary goal of Atacama Mars analog research for understanding the microbial community structure and adaptations: this study sheds light on the structure of xerophilic, halophilic, and radioresistant microbiomes in hyperarid environments, and their response to changes in water availability.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianxun Shen ◽  
Adam J. Wyness ◽  
Mark W. Claire ◽  
Aubrey L. Zerkle

AbstractOver the past 150 million years, the Chilean Atacama Desert has been transformed into one of the most inhospitable landscapes by geophysical changes, which makes it an ideal Mars analog that has been explored for decades. However, a heavy rainfall that occurred in the Atacama in 2017 provides a unique opportunity to study the response of resident extremophiles to rapid environmental change associated with excessive water and salt shock. Here we combine mineral/salt composition measurements, amendment cell culture experiments, and next-generation sequencing analyses to study the variations in salts and microbial communities along a latitudinal aridity gradient of the Atacama Desert. In addition, we examine the reshuffling of Atacama microbiomes after the rainfall event. Analysis of microbial community composition revealed that soils within the southern arid desert were consistently dominated by Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Gemmatimonadetes, Planctomycetes, and Acidobacteria, and Verrucomicrobia. Intriguingly, the hyperarid microbial consortia exhibited a similar pattern to the more southern desert. Salts at the shallow subsurface were dissolved and leached down to a deeper layer, challenging indigenous microorganisms with the increasing osmotic stress. Microbial viability was found to change with aridity and rainfall events. This study sheds light on the structure of xerotolerant, halotolerant, and radioresistant microbiomes from the hyperarid northern desert to the less arid southern transition region, as well as their response to changes in water availability.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 10359-10387 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Y. Dong ◽  
X. Y. Zhang ◽  
X. Y. Liu ◽  
X. L. Fu ◽  
F. S. Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract. Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) additions to forest ecosystems are known to influence various above-ground properties, such as plant productivity and composition, and below-ground properties, such as soil nutrient cycling. However, our understanding of how soil microbial communities and their functions respond to nutrient additions in subtropical plantations is still not complete. In this study, we added N and P to Chinese fir plantations in subtropical China to examine how nutrient additions influenced soil microbial community composition and enzyme activities. The results showed that most soil microbial properties were responsive to N and/or P additions, but responses often varied depending on the nutrient added and the quantity added. For instance, there were more than 30 % greater increases in the activities of β-Glucosidase (βG) and N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase (NAG) in the treatments that received nutrient additions compared to the control plot, whereas acid phosphatase (aP) activity was always higher (57 and 71 %, respectively) in the P treatment. N and P additions greatly enhanced the PLFA abundanceespecially in the N2P treatment, the bacterial PLFAs (bacPLFAs), fungal PLFAs (funPLFAs) and actinomycic PLFAs (actPLFAs) were about 2.5, 3 and 4 times higher, respectively, than in the CK. Soil enzyme activities were noticeably higher in November than in July, mainly due to seasonal differences in soil moisture content (SMC). βG or NAG activities were significantly and positively correlated with microbial PLFAs. There were also significant relationships between gram-positive (G+) bacteria and all three soil enzymes. These findings indicate that G+ bacteria is the most important microbial community in C, N, and P transformations in Chinese fir plantations, and that βG and NAG would be useful tools for assessing the biogeochemical transformation and metabolic activity of soil microbes. We recommend combined additions of N and P fertilizer to promote soil fertility and microbial activity in this kind of plantation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott F. George ◽  
Noah Fierer ◽  
Joseph S. Levy ◽  
Byron Adams

Ice-free soils in the McMurdo Dry Valleys select for taxa able to cope with challenging environmental conditions, including extreme chemical water activity gradients, freeze-thaw cycling, desiccation, and solar radiation regimes. The low biotic complexity of Dry Valley soils makes them well suited to investigate environmental and spatial influences on bacterial community structure. Water tracks are annually wetted habitats in the cold-arid soils of Antarctica that form briefly each summer with moisture sourced from snow melt, ground ice thaw, and atmospheric deposition via deliquescence and vapor flow into brines. Compared to neighboring arid soils, water tracks are highly saline and relatively moist habitats. They represent a considerable area (∼5–10 km2) of the Dry Valley terrestrial ecosystem, an area that is expected to increase with ongoing climate change. The goal of this study was to determine how variation in the environmental conditions of water tracks influences the composition and diversity of microbial communities. We found significant differences in microbial community composition between on- and off-water track samples, and across two distinct locations. Of the tested environmental variables, soil salinity was the best predictor of community composition, with members of the Bacteroidetes phylum being relatively more abundant at higher salinities and the Actinobacteria phylum showing the opposite pattern. There was also a significant, inverse relationship between salinity and bacterial diversity. Our results suggest water track formation significantly alters dry soil microbial communities, likely influencing subsequent ecosystem functioning. We highlight how Dry Valley water tracks could be a useful model system for understanding the potential habitability of transiently wetted environments found on the surface of Mars.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1495
Author(s):  
Tim Piel ◽  
Giovanni Sandrini ◽  
Gerard Muyzer ◽  
Corina P. D. Brussaard ◽  
Pieter C. Slot ◽  
...  

Applying low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to lakes is an emerging method to mitigate harmful cyanobacterial blooms. While cyanobacteria are very sensitive to H2O2, little is known about the impacts of these H2O2 treatments on other members of the microbial community. In this study, we investigated changes in microbial community composition during two lake treatments with low H2O2 concentrations (target: 2.5 mg L−1) and in two series of controlled lake incubations. The results show that the H2O2 treatments effectively suppressed the dominant cyanobacteria Aphanizomenon klebahnii, Dolichospermum sp. and, to a lesser extent, Planktothrix agardhii. Microbial community analysis revealed that several Proteobacteria (e.g., Alteromonadales, Pseudomonadales, Rhodobacterales) profited from the treatments, whereas some bacterial taxa declined (e.g., Verrucomicrobia). In particular, the taxa known to be resistant to oxidative stress (e.g., Rheinheimera) strongly increased in relative abundance during the first 24 h after H2O2 addition, but subsequently declined again. Alpha and beta diversity showed a temporary decline but recovered within a few days, demonstrating resilience of the microbial community. The predicted functionality of the microbial community revealed a temporary increase of anti-ROS defenses and glycoside hydrolases but otherwise remained stable throughout the treatments. We conclude that the use of low concentrations of H2O2 to suppress cyanobacterial blooms provides a short-term pulse disturbance but is not detrimental to lake microbial communities and their ecosystem functioning.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amandine Erktan ◽  
MD Ekramul Haque ◽  
Jérôme Cortet ◽  
Paul Henning Krogh ◽  
Stefan Scheu

<p>Trophic regulation of microbial communities is receiving growing interest in soil ecology. Most studies investigated the effect of higher trophic levels on microbial communities at the bulk soil level. However, microbes are not equally accessible to consumers. They may be hidden in small pores and thus protected from consumers, suggesting that trophic regulation may depend on the localization of microbes within the soil matrix. As microaggregates (< 250 µm) usually are more stable than macroaggregates (> 250 µm) and embedded in the latter, we posit that they will be less affected by trophic regulations than larger aggregates. We quantified the effect of four contrasting species of collembolans (Ceratophysella denticulata, Protaphorura fimata, Folsomia candida, Sinella curviseta) on the microbial community composition in macro- (250 µm – 2mm) and microaggregates (50 – 250 µm). To do so, we re-built consumer-prey systems comprising remaining microbial background (post-autoclaving), fungal prey (Chaetomium globosum), and collembolan species (added as single species or combined). After three months, we quantified microbial community composition using phospholipid fatty acid markers (PLFAs). We found that the microbial communities in macroaggregates were more affected by the addition of collembolans than the communities in microaggregates. In particular, the fungal-to-bacterial (F:B) ratio significantly decreased in soil macroaggregates in the presence of collembolans. In the microaggregates, the F:B ratio remained lower and unaffected by collembolan inoculation. Presumably, fungal hyphae were more abundant in macroaggregates because they offered more habitat space for them, and the collembolans reduced fungal abundance because they consumed them. On the contrary, microaggregates presumably contained microbial communities protected from consumers. In addition, collembolans increased the formation of macroaggregates but did not influence their stability, despite their negative effect on fungal abundance, a well-known stabilizing agent. Overall, we show that trophic interactions between microbial communities and collembolans depend on the aggregate size class considered and, in return, soil macroaggregation is affected by these trophic interactions.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
xia ding ◽  
Xiaojue Peng ◽  
Zhichao Chen ◽  
Yingjie Li ◽  
Lihui Mao ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Drought is a global environmental stress that limits crop yields. Microbial communities control many biogeochemical processes, and a predictive understanding of how crop microbial communities assemble in response to drought stress is central to addressing the challenges caused by drought. Little is known about the microbiome assembly processes in rice-ecosystems, particularly with regard to their environmental adaptation. Wild rice may serve as a source of superior drought tolerance candidate for rice breeding. There is an urgent need to explore wild rice resistance mechanisms to drought stress. Here, we evaluated the effect of drought stress on the microbial community recruitment and assembly in the endosphere (leaf, stem, and root) and rhizosphere of Oryza longistaminata. Results Species replacement was the dominant process shaping microbial community composition under drought stress. O. longistaminata recruited the phyla Actinobacteria and Fusobacteria, the genus Streptomyces, and phototrophic prokaryotes to improve its fitness. The host exerted strong effects on microbiome assembly, and the responses of the microbial community structure to the drought environment showed above- and belowground patterns. Drought reduced taxonomic α-diversity and destabilized co-occurrence network properties in the leaves and stems, but not in the roots and rhizosphere. Drought promoted the restructuring and strengthening of belowground network links to more strongly interconnect network properties. The drought response of the microbiome was phylogenetically conserved. Stochastic (neutral) processes acted on microbial community reassembly in response to drought stress across all four compartments. Conclusions Our results provide new insight into the mechanisms through which drought alters microbial community assembly in drought-tolerant wild rice and reveal a potential strategy for manipulating plant microbiomes to improve crop fitness.


2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Burkert ◽  
Thomas A. Douglas ◽  
Mark P. Waldrop ◽  
Rachel Mackelprang

ABSTRACTPermafrost hosts a community of microorganisms that survive and reproduce for millennia despite extreme environmental conditions, such as water stress, subzero temperatures, high salinity, and low nutrient availability. Many studies focused on permafrost microbial community composition use DNA-based methods, such as metagenomics and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. However, these methods do not distinguish among active, dead, and dormant cells. This is of particular concern in ancient permafrost, where constant subzero temperatures preserve DNA from dead organisms and dormancy may be a common survival strategy. To circumvent this, we applied (i) LIVE/DEAD differential staining coupled with microscopy, (ii) endospore enrichment, and (iii) selective depletion of DNA from dead cells to permafrost microbial communities across a Pleistocene permafrost chronosequence (19,000, 27,000, and 33,000 years old). Cell counts and analysis of 16S rRNA gene amplicons from live, dead, and dormant cells revealed how communities differ between these pools, how they are influenced by soil physicochemical properties, and whether they change over geologic time. We found evidence that cells capable of forming endospores are not necessarily dormant and that members of the classBacilliwere more likely to form endospores in response to long-term stressors associated with permafrost environmental conditions than members of theClostridia, which were more likely to persist as vegetative cells in our older samples. We also found that removing exogenous “relic” DNA preserved within permafrost did not significantly alter microbial community composition. These results link the live, dead, and dormant microbial communities to physicochemical characteristics and provide insights into the survival of microbial communities in ancient permafrost.IMPORTANCEPermafrost soils store more than half of Earth’s soil carbon despite covering ∼15% of the land area (C. Tarnocai et al., Global Biogeochem Cycles 23:GB2023, 2009, https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GB003327). This permafrost carbon is rapidly degraded following a thaw (E. A. G. Schuur et al., Nature 520:171–179, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14338). Understanding microbial communities in permafrost will contribute to the knowledge base necessary to understand the rates and forms of permafrost C and N cycling postthaw. Permafrost is also an analog for frozen extraterrestrial environments, and evidence of viable organisms in ancient permafrost is of interest to those searching for potential life on distant worlds. If we can identify strategies microbial communities utilize to survive in permafrost, it may yield insights into how life (if it exists) survives in frozen environments outside of Earth. Our work is significant because it contributes to an understanding of how microbial life adapts and survives in the extreme environmental conditions in permafrost terrains.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 1181
Author(s):  
Reynaldo Núñez Salazar ◽  
Carlos Aguirre ◽  
Jorge Soto ◽  
Pamela Salinas ◽  
Carlos Salinas ◽  
...  

Due to the low incidence of precipitation attributed to climate change, many high-altitude Andean lakes (HAALs) and lagoons distributed along the central Andes in South America may soon disappear. This includes La Brava–La Punta, a brackish lake system located south of the Salar de Atacama within a hyper-arid and halophytic biome in the Atacama Desert. Variations in the physicochemical parameters of the water column can induce changes in microbial community composition, which we aimed to determine. Sixteen sampling points across La Brava–La Punta were studied to assess the influence of water physicochemical properties on the aquatic microbial community, determined via 16S rRNA gene analysis. Parameters such as pH and the concentrations of silica, magnesium, calcium, salinity, and dissolved oxygen showed a more homogenous pattern in La Punta samples, whereas those from La Brava had greater variability; pH and total silica were significantly different between La Brava and La Punta. The predominant phyla were Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Verrucomicrobia. The genera Psychroflexus (36.85%), Thiomicrospira (12.48%), and Pseudomonas (7.81%) were more abundant in La Brava, while Pseudospirillum (20.73%) and Roseovarius (17.20%) were more abundant in La Punta. Among the parameters, pH was the only statistically significant factor influencing the diversity within La Brava lake. These results complement the known microbial diversity and composition in the HAALs of the Atacama Desert.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa L. Brisson ◽  
Jennifer E. Schmidt ◽  
Trent R. Northen ◽  
John P. Vogel ◽  
Amélie C. M. Gaudin

Abstract Maize domestication and breeding have resulted in drastic and well documented changes in aboveground traits, but belowground effects on root system functioning and rhizosphere microbial communities remain poorly understood, despite their critical importance for nutrient and water acquisition. We investigated the rhizosphere microbial community composition and structure of ten Zea mays accessions along an evolutionary transect (two teosinte, three inbred maize lines, and five modern maize hybrids) grown in nutrient depleted soil from a low input agricultural system. Microbial community analysis revealed significant differences in community composition between soil compartments (proximal vs. distal rhizosphere) and between plant genetic groups (teosinte, inbred, and modern hybrid). Only a small portion of the microbial community was differentially selected across plant genetic groups: 3.7% of prokaryotic community members and 4.9% of fungal community members were significantly associated with a specific plant genetic group. Indicator species analysis showed the greatest differentiation between modern hybrids and the other two plant genetic groups. Co-occurrence network analysis revealed that microbial co-occurrence patterns of the inbred maize lines’ rhizosphere were significantly more similar to those of the teosintes than to the modern hybrids. Our results suggest that advances in hybrid development significantly impacted rhizosphere microbial communities and network assembly.


mBio ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Carini ◽  
Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo ◽  
Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley ◽  
Hannah Holland‐Moritz ◽  
Tess E. Brewer ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Few studies have comprehensively investigated the temporal variability in soil microbial communities despite widespread recognition that the belowground environment is dynamic. In part, this stems from the challenges associated with the high degree of spatial heterogeneity in soil microbial communities and because the presence of relic DNA (DNA from dead cells or secreted extracellular DNA) may dampen temporal signals. Here, we disentangle the relationships among spatial, temporal, and relic DNA effects on prokaryotic and fungal communities in soils collected from contrasting hillslopes in Colorado, USA. We intensively sampled plots on each hillslope over 6 months to discriminate between temporal variability, intraplot spatial heterogeneity, and relic DNA effects on the soil prokaryotic and fungal communities. We show that the intraplot spatial variability in microbial community composition was strong and independent of relic DNA effects and that these spatial patterns persisted throughout the study. When controlling for intraplot spatial variability, we identified significant temporal variability in both plots over the 6-month study. These microbial communities were more dissimilar over time after relic DNA was removed, suggesting that relic DNA hinders the detection of important temporal dynamics in belowground microbial communities. We identified microbial taxa that exhibited shared temporal responses and show that these responses were often predictable from temporal changes in soil conditions. Our findings highlight approaches that can be used to better characterize temporal shifts in soil microbial communities, information that is critical for predicting the environmental preferences of individual soil microbial taxa and identifying linkages between soil microbial community composition and belowground processes. IMPORTANCE Nearly all microbial communities are dynamic in time. Understanding how temporal dynamics in microbial community structure affect soil biogeochemistry and fertility are key to being able to predict the responses of the soil microbiome to environmental perturbations. Here, we explain the effects of soil spatial structure and relic DNA on the determination of microbial community fluctuations over time. We found that intensive spatial sampling was required to identify temporal effects in microbial communities because of the high degree of spatial heterogeneity in soil and that DNA from nonliving sources masks important temporal patterns. We identified groups of microbes with shared temporal responses and show that these patterns were predictable from changes in soil characteristics. These results provide insight into the environmental preferences and temporal relationships between individual microbial taxa and highlight the importance of considering relic DNA when trying to detect temporal dynamics in belowground communities.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document