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Microorganisms
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Microbes in the Cryosphere
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Microbes in the Cryosphere

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Microbiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2021) | Viewed by 17671

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Craig Herbold

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Division of Microbial Ecology, Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Interests: environmental microbiology; microbial evolution; biogeochemical cycling; computational biology; astrobiology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The cryosphere encompasses all environments on Earth with water ice. This includes perennially frozen permafrost, glaciers and ice sheets, as well as seasonally frozen sea ice and winter snow cover. It is dynamic both in space and time, ebbing and flowing in its spatial reach over seasonal and climatic cycles.

The process of freezing changes water chemistry and physically damages cells through ice crystal formation. Despite this harsh process, specific microorganisms survive, some of which enter a dormant state, while others remain active. Distinguishing between these two types of microorganisms is important for understanding biogeochemical cycling within the cryosphere, accurately predicting the effect of warming on the perennial cryosphere (e.g., permafrost) under current climate projections and in better understanding the mechanisms by which life evolved under periods of “Snowball Earth” in the distant past.

This Special Issue of Microorganisms aims to compile the latest advances in understanding the survival strategies and ecological role of cryosphere-associated microbes. We invite contributions as original articles or reviews that cover any aspect of the cryosphere microbiome. We encourage contributions from researchers using standard techniques including cultivation efforts, physiological characterization, and -omics approaches, as well as theoretical explorations with potential astrobiological significance. We are especially interested in contributions aimed at identifying specific metabolic processes active within the cryosphere and in identifying and/or modeling the contribution of cryosphere-associated microbes to biogeochemical processes.

Dr. Craig Herbold
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cryosphere
  • alpine
  • polar
  • microbiome
  • microbiology
  • microbial ecology
  • atmosphere
  • biogeochemistry
  • climate
  • physiology

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 2852 KiB  
Article
Microbial Community Structure Driven by a Volcanic Gradient in Glaciers of the Antarctic Archipelago South Shetland
by Eva García-Lopez, Sandra Serrano, Miguel Angel Calvo, Sonia Peña Perez, Silvia Sanchez-Casanova, Laura García-Descalzo and Cristina Cid
Microorganisms 2021, 9(2), 392; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9020392 - 14 Feb 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3058
Abstract
It has been demonstrated that the englacial ecosystem in volcanic environments is inhabited by active bacteria. To know whether this result could be extrapolated to other Antarctic glaciers and to study the populations of microeukaryotes in addition to those of bacteria, a study [...] Read more.
It has been demonstrated that the englacial ecosystem in volcanic environments is inhabited by active bacteria. To know whether this result could be extrapolated to other Antarctic glaciers and to study the populations of microeukaryotes in addition to those of bacteria, a study was performed using ice samples from eight glaciers in the South Shetland archipelago. The identification of microbial communities of bacteria and microeukaryotes using 16S rRNA and 18S rRNA high throughput sequencing showed a great diversity when compared with microbiomes of other Antarctic glaciers or frozen deserts. Even the composition of the microbial communities identified in the glaciers from the same island was different, which may be due to the isolation of microbial clusters within the ice. A gradient in the abundance and diversity of the microbial communities from the volcano (west to the east) was observed. Additionally, a significant correlation was found between the chemical conditions of the ice samples and the composition of the prokaryotic populations inhabiting them along the volcanic gradient. The bacteria that participate in the sulfur cycle were those that best fit this trend. Furthermore, on the eastern island, a clear influence of human contamination was observed on the glacier microbiome. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbes in the Cryosphere)
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18 pages, 2646 KiB  
Article
Coastal Bacterial Community Response to Glacier Melting in the Western Antarctic Peninsula
by María Estrella Alcamán-Arias, Sebastián Fuentes-Alburquenque, Pablo Vergara-Barros, Jerónimo Cifuentes-Anticevic, Josefa Verdugo, Martin Polz, Laura Farías, Carlos Pedrós-Alió and Beatriz Díez
Microorganisms 2021, 9(1), 88; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9010088 - 1 Jan 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4428
Abstract
Current warming in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) has multiple effects on the marine ecosystem, modifying the trophic web and the nutrient regime. In this study, the effect of decreased surface salinity on the marine microbial community as a consequence of freshening from [...] Read more.
Current warming in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) has multiple effects on the marine ecosystem, modifying the trophic web and the nutrient regime. In this study, the effect of decreased surface salinity on the marine microbial community as a consequence of freshening from nearby glaciers was investigated in Chile Bay, Greenwich Island, WAP. In the summer of 2016, samples were collected from glacier ice and transects along the bay for 16S rRNA gene sequencing, while in situ dilution experiments were conducted and analyzed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metatranscriptomic analysis. The results reveal that certain common seawater genera, such as Polaribacter, Pseudoalteromonas and HTCC2207, responded positively to decreased salinity in both the bay transect and experiments. The relative abundance of these bacteria slightly decreased, but their functional activity was maintained and increased the over time in the dilution experiments. However, while ice bacteria, such as Flavobacterium and Polaromonas, tolerated the increased salinity after mixing with seawater, their gene expression decreased considerably. We suggest that these bacterial taxa could be defined as sentinels of freshening events in the Antarctic coastal system. Furthermore, these results suggest that a significant portion of the microbial community is resilient and can adapt to disturbances, such as freshening due to the warming effect of climate change in Antarctica. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbes in the Cryosphere)
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16 pages, 3150 KiB  
Article
Microbial Species–Area Relationships in Antarctic Cryoconite Holes Depend on Productivity
by Pacifica Sommers, Dorota L. Porazinska, John L. Darcy, Eli M. S. Gendron, Lara Vimercati, Adam J. Solon and Steven K. Schmidt
Microorganisms 2020, 8(11), 1747; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8111747 - 7 Nov 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2904
Abstract
The island species–area relationship (ISAR) is a positive association between the number of species and the area of an isolated, island-like habitat. ISARs are ubiquitous across domains of life, yet the processes generating ISARs remain poorly understood, particularly for microbes. Larger and more [...] Read more.
The island species–area relationship (ISAR) is a positive association between the number of species and the area of an isolated, island-like habitat. ISARs are ubiquitous across domains of life, yet the processes generating ISARs remain poorly understood, particularly for microbes. Larger and more productive islands are hypothesized to have more species because they support larger populations of each species and thus reduce the probability of stochastic extinctions in small population sizes. Here, we disentangled the effects of “island” size and productivity on the ISAR of Antarctic cryoconite holes. We compared the species richness of bacteria and microbial eukaryotes on two glaciers that differ in their productivity across varying hole sizes. We found that cryoconite holes on the more productive Canada Glacier gained more species with increasing hole area than holes on the less productive Taylor Glacier. Within each glacier, neither productivity nor community evenness explained additional variation in the ISAR. Our results are, therefore, consistent with productivity shaping microbial ISARs at broad scales. More comparisons of microbial ISARs across environments with limited confounding factors, such as cryoconite holes, and experimental manipulations within these systems will further contribute to our understanding of the processes shaping microbial biogeography. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbes in the Cryosphere)
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15 pages, 2457 KiB  
Article
Fungal Community in Antarctic Soil Along the Retreating Collins Glacier (Fildes Peninsula, King George Island)
by Juliana Aparecida dos Santos, Edenilson Meyer and Lara Durães Sette
Microorganisms 2020, 8(8), 1145; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8081145 - 29 Jul 2020
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 3829
Abstract
Glacial retreat is one of the most conspicuous signs of warming in Antarctic regions. Glacier soils harbor an active microbial community of decomposers, and under the continuous retraction of glaciers, the soil starts to present a gradient of physical, chemical, and biological factors [...] Read more.
Glacial retreat is one of the most conspicuous signs of warming in Antarctic regions. Glacier soils harbor an active microbial community of decomposers, and under the continuous retraction of glaciers, the soil starts to present a gradient of physical, chemical, and biological factors reflecting regional changes over time. Little is known about the biological nature of fungi in Antarctic glacier soils. In this sense, this work aimed at studying the behavior of fungal community structure from samples of glacier soil collected after glacial retreat (Collins Glacier). A total of 309 fungi distributed in 19 genera were obtained from eleven soil samples. Representatives of the genera Pseudogymnoascus (Ascomycota) and Mortierella (Mortierellomycota) were the most abundant isolates in all samples. The data revealed the presence of filamentous fungi belonging to the phylum Basidiomycota, rarely found in Antarctica. Analysis of the generalized linear models revealed that the distance from the glacier as well as phosphorus and clay were able to modify the distribution of fungal species. Environmental variations proved to have influenced the genera Pseudogymnoascus and Pseudeutorium. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbes in the Cryosphere)
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18 pages, 7331 KiB  
Article
Contrasting Patterns of the Bacterial Communities in Melting Ponds and Periglacial Rivers of the Zhuxi glacier in the Tibet Plateau
by Yang Hu, Xin Yao, Yuanyuan Wu, Wei Han, Yongqiang Zhou, Xiangming Tang, Keqiang Shao and Guang Gao
Microorganisms 2020, 8(4), 509; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8040509 - 2 Apr 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2489
Abstract
Since the early 21st century, global climate change has been inducing rapid glacier retreat at an unprecedented rate. In this context, the melt ponds impart increasing unique footprints on the periglacial rivers due to their hydrodynamic connection. Given that bacterial communities control [...] Read more.
Since the early 21st century, global climate change has been inducing rapid glacier retreat at an unprecedented rate. In this context, the melt ponds impart increasing unique footprints on the periglacial rivers due to their hydrodynamic connection. Given that bacterial communities control numerous ecosystem processes in the glacial ecosystem, exploring the fate of bacterial communities from melt ponds to periglacial rivers yields key knowledge of the biodiversity and biogeochemistry of glacial ecosystems. Here, we analyzed the bacterial community structure, diversity, and co-occurrence network to reveal the community organization in the Zhuxi glacier in the Tibet Plateau. The results showed that the bacterial communities in melt ponds were significantly lower in alpha-diversity but were significantly higher in beta-diversity than those in periglacial rivers. The rare sub-communities significantly contributed to the stability of the bacterial communities in both habitats. The co-occurrence network inferred that the mutually beneficial relationships predominated in the two networks. Nevertheless, the lower ratio of positive to negative edges in melt ponds than periglacial rivers implicated fiercer competition in the former habitat. Based on the significantly higher value of degree, betweenness, and modules, as well as shorter average path length in melt ponds, we speculated that their bacterial communities are less resilient than those of periglacial rivers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbes in the Cryosphere)
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