Abstract
The global biogeography of microorganisms remains poorly resolved, which limits the current understanding of microbial resilience toward environmental changes. Using high-throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, we characterized the microbial diversity of terrestrial and lacustrine biofilms from the Arctic, Antarctic and temperate regions. Our analyses suggest that bacterial community compositions at the poles are more similar to each other than they are to geographically closer temperate habitats, with 32% of all operational taxonomic units (OTUs) co-occurring in both polar regions. While specific microbial taxa were confined to distinct regions, representing potentially endemic populations, the percentage of cosmopolitan taxa was higher in Arctic (43%) than in Antarctic samples (36%). The overlap in polar microbial OTUs may be explained by natural or anthropogenically-mediated dispersal in combination with environmental filtering. Current and future changing environmental conditions may enhance microbial invasion, establishment of cosmopolitan genotypes and loss of endemic taxa.
Highlights
In a time of rapid environmental change, the study of biogeographic patterns on global and local scales, and the identification of drivers behind the spatial distribution of species, has become increasingly important (Walther et al, 2002)
77% of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) could not be unambiguously assigned to the 16S rRNA of known species and another 21% were assigned to uncultured species
This study provides the first large-scale comparative study of a unique set of microbial communities of the Arctic, Antarctic, and temperate areas using high-throughput sequencing
Summary
In a time of rapid environmental change, the study of biogeographic patterns on global and local scales, and the identification of drivers behind the spatial distribution of species, has become increasingly important (Walther et al, 2002). Microorganisms (including prokaryotes), in contrast to many macroorganisms, are considered to be less confined by geographical barriers due to more efficient dispersal capacities (Bell, 2010; Chong et al, 2015), so that even remote and isolated habitats should be under constant exchange with both near and distant habitats. In this case, local as well as more cosmopolitan species are expected to be present and species distributions are likely to reflect environmental filtering rather than dispersal limitations (global ubiquity hypothesis, Baas-Becking, 1934; O’Malley, 2008)
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