Metagenomic Analysis of Microbial Communities Beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, 2017
In Antarctica, ice shelves such as the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) fringe 75% of the coastline and cover over 1.5 million km2, creating distinct and largely unexplored marine environments. It is fundamental to characterize the communities under these shelves to understand their biogeochemical role and predict how they might respond to future ice-shelf collapse 1,2. While historical studies suggested the RIS harbors active microorganisms 3–5, nothing is known about the composition of these communities. In this study, we profiled the composition, function, and activities of microbial communities in three seawater samples (400, 550, 700 m depth) underlying the shelf interior. We combined rate measurements with multi-omics (i.e. single-cell genomics, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metaproteomics). Overall, below-shelf waters harbour microbial communities of comparable abundance and diversity to deep pelagic waters. Based on the meta-omic data, the community is inferred to be sustained by dark carbon fixation using ammonia, nitrite, and sulfur compounds as electron donors. In turn, these chemolithoautotrophs are predicted to support the aerobic heterotrophic majority and various trophic interactions. Consistently, this study and previous activity measurements suggest that dark carbon fixation is sufficient to sustain prokaryotic heterotrophic production, making the waters below the RIS presumably the largest chemolithotrophic system in the global ocean.
Further details are provided at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27769-5
GET DATA: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB35712
GET DATA: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/?term=PRJNA593264
Simple
- Date (Creation)
- 2021-02-06T00:00:00
- Date (Publication)
- 2021-02-06T00:00:00
Identifier
- Identifier
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27769-5
- Status
- completed Completed
- Keywords
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- ROSS ICE SHELF
- METAGENOMICS
- HWD2
- K061A
- GCMD Earth Science and Earth Science Services Keywords
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- MARINE ECOSYSTEMS
- COMMUNITY DYNAMICS
- BACTERIA/ARCHAEA
- GCMD Platform/Sources Keywords
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- Ice Shelf
- LABORATORY
- GCMD Locations Keywords
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- ANTARCTICA
- GCMD Project Keywords
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- Aotearoa New Zealand Ross Ice Shelf Programme
- ASP
- Use limitation
- This data set conforms to the CC BY Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Date
- Statement
- Creative Commons Attribution 4
- gmd:disseminationConstraints
- License
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
- Aggregate Datasetindentifier
- 60782a7c-8574-48dc-8b60-e460ab552f9f
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Initiative Type
- Project
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- utf8 UTF8
- Topic category
-
- Biota
- Begin date
- 2017-12-11T00:00:00
- End date
- 2017-12-19T12:00:00
- Distribution format
-
- File identifier
- 7ba4da40-1152-4b6f-ac66-6cb2afe7bdd3 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- anyValidURI
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Date stamp
- 2024-04-18T00:48:23
- Metadata standard name
- ISO 19115-1
- Metadata standard version
- 2018