Evidence for signatures of ancient microbial life in paleosols

Loess-paleosol sequences are terrestrial archives of past climate change. They may host traces of ancient microbial life, but little information is available on the recovery of microbial biomarkers from such deposits. We hypothesized that microbial communities in soil horizons up to an age of 127 ky...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2020-10, Vol.10 (1), p.16830, Article 16830
Main Authors: Frindte, Katharina, Lehndorff, Eva, Vlaminck, Stefan, Werner, Katharina, Kehl, Martin, Khormali, Farhad, Knief, Claudia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/326/171/1818
704/158/2462
Bacteria - genetics
Climate Change
Environment
Gene Amplification
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Paleontology
Polymerase Chain Reaction
RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - genetics
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Soil Microbiology
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Summary:Loess-paleosol sequences are terrestrial archives of past climate change. They may host traces of ancient microbial life, but little information is available on the recovery of microbial biomarkers from such deposits. We hypothesized that microbial communities in soil horizons up to an age of 127 kyr carry information related to past environments. We extracted DNA from a loess-paleosol sequence near Toshan, Northern Iran, with 26 m thick deposits showing different degrees of soil development, performed quantitative PCR and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Periods of soil formation archived within the loess sediment led to higher diversity and bacterial abundance in the paleosol horizons. Community composition fluctuated over the loess-paleosol sequence and was mainly correlated with age and depth, (ADONIS R 2  
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-020-73938-9