Microbial hotspots in lithic microhabitats inferred from DNA fractionation and metagenomics in the Atacama Desert
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The existence of microbial activity hotspots in temperate regions of Earth is driven by soil heterogeneities, especially the temporal and spatial availability of nutrients. Here we investigate whether microbial activity hotspots also exist in lithic microhabitats in one of the most arid regions of the world, the Atacama Desert in Chile. While previous studies evaluated the total DNA fraction to elucidate the microbial communities, we here for the first time use a DNA separation approach on lithic microhabitats, together with metagenomics and other analysis methods (i.e., ATP, PLFA, and metabolite analysis) to specifically gain insights on the living and potentially active microbial community. Our results show that hypolith colonized rocks are microbial hotspots in the desert environment. In contrast, our data do not support such a conclusion for gypsum crust and salt rock environments, because only limited microbial activity could be observed. The hypolith community is dominated by phototrophs, mostly Cyanobacteria and Chloroflexi, at both study sites. The gypsum crusts are dominated by methylotrophs and heterotrophic phototrophs, mostly Chloroflexi, and the salt rocks (halite nodules) by phototrophic and halotolerant endoliths, mostly Cyanobacteria and Archaea. The major environmental constraints in the organic-poor arid and hyperarid Atacama Desert are water availability and UV irradiation, allowing phototrophs and other extremophiles to play a key role in desert ecology.
Date Issued
2021-05-11
Date Acceptance
2021-05-05
Citation
Microorganisms, 2021, 9 (5)
ISSN
2076-2607
Publisher
MDPI AG
Journal / Book Title
Microorganisms
Volume
9
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/)
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34065975
PII: microorganisms9051038
Subjects
COLONIZATION
COMMUNITY STRUCTURE
desert ecology
endolith
EXTRACELLULAR DNA
EXTRACTION
extremophile
FATTY-ACIDS
habitat
HOT MOMENTS
hyperarid
HYPER-ARID ZONE
hypolith
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Microbiology
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
RAPID METHOD
Science & Technology
SP-NOV.
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
Switzerland
Article Number
1038
Date Publish Online
2021-05-12