Exploring microbial diversity in Greenland Ice Sheet supraglacial habitats through culturing-dependent and -independent approaches

Abstract The microbiome of Greenland Ice Sheet supraglacial habitats is still underinvestigated, and as a result there is a lack of representative genomes from these environments. In this study, we investigated the supraglacial microbiome through a combination of culturing-dependent and -independent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:FEMS microbiology ecology 2023-10, Vol.99 (11)
Main Authors: Jaarsma, Ate H, Sipes, Katie, Zervas, Athanasios, Jiménez, Francisco Campuzano, Ellegaard-Jensen, Lea, Thøgersen, Mariane S, Stougaard, Peter, Benning, Liane G, Tranter, Martyn, Anesio, Alexandre M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biodiversity
Biofilms
Environmental DNA
Gene sequencing
Genomes
Habitats
Ice sheets
Metagenomics
Microbiomes
Microorganisms
Next-generation sequencing
rRNA
Whole genome sequencing
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Summary:Abstract The microbiome of Greenland Ice Sheet supraglacial habitats is still underinvestigated, and as a result there is a lack of representative genomes from these environments. In this study, we investigated the supraglacial microbiome through a combination of culturing-dependent and -independent approaches. We explored ice, cryoconite, biofilm, and snow biodiversity to answer: (1) how microbial diversity differs between supraglacial habitats, (2) if obtained bacterial genomes reflect dominant community members, and (3) how culturing versus high throughput sequencing changes our observations of microbial diversity in supraglacial habitats. Genomes acquired through metagenomic sequencing (133 high-quality MAGs) and whole genome sequencing (73 bacterial isolates) were compared to the metagenome assemblies to investigate abundance within the total environmental DNA. Isolates obtained in this study were not dominant taxa in the habitat they were sampled from, in contrast to the obtained MAGs. We demonstrate here the advantages of using metagenome SSU rRNA genes to reflect whole-community diversity. Additionally, we demonstrate a proof-of-concept of the application of in situ culturing in a supraglacial setting. Various culturing-dependent and -independent methods were used to explore microbial diversity on the Greenland Ice Sheet, highlighting the benefits of combining different approaches to capture genomic diversity.
ISSN:1574-6941
0168-6496
1574-6941
DOI:10.1093/femsec/fiad119