Cargando…

Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils

The Antarctic continent is widely considered to be one of the most hostile biological habitats on Earth. Despite extreme environmental conditions, the ice-free areas of the continent, which constitute some 0.44% of the total continental land area, harbour substantial and diverse communities of macro...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ortiz, Max, Bosch, Jason, Coclet, Clément, Johnson, Jenny, Lebre, Pedro, Salawu-Rotimi, Adeola, Vikram, Surendra, Makhalanyane, Thulani, Cowan, Don
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7564152/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32967081
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8091442
_version_ 1783595647393333248
author Ortiz, Max
Bosch, Jason
Coclet, Clément
Johnson, Jenny
Lebre, Pedro
Salawu-Rotimi, Adeola
Vikram, Surendra
Makhalanyane, Thulani
Cowan, Don
author_facet Ortiz, Max
Bosch, Jason
Coclet, Clément
Johnson, Jenny
Lebre, Pedro
Salawu-Rotimi, Adeola
Vikram, Surendra
Makhalanyane, Thulani
Cowan, Don
author_sort Ortiz, Max
collection PubMed
description The Antarctic continent is widely considered to be one of the most hostile biological habitats on Earth. Despite extreme environmental conditions, the ice-free areas of the continent, which constitute some 0.44% of the total continental land area, harbour substantial and diverse communities of macro-organisms and especially microorganisms, particularly in the more “hospitable” maritime regions. In the more extreme non-maritime regions, exemplified by the McMurdo Dry Valleys of South Victoria Land, nutrient cycling and ecosystem servicing processes in soils are largely driven by microbial communities. Nitrogen turnover is a cornerstone of ecosystem servicing. In Antarctic continental soils, specifically those lacking macrophytes, cold-active free-living diazotrophic microorganisms, particularly Cyanobacteria, are keystone taxa. The diazotrophs are complemented by heterotrophic bacterial and archaeal taxa which show the genetic capacity to perform elements of the entire N cycle, including nitrification processes such as the anammox reaction. Here, we review the current literature on nitrogen cycling genes, taxa, processes and rates from studies of Antarctic soils. In particular, we highlight the current gaps in our knowledge of the scale and contribution of these processes in south polar soils as critical data to underpin viable predictions of how such processes may alter under the impacts of future climate change.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7564152
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-75641522020-10-26 Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils Ortiz, Max Bosch, Jason Coclet, Clément Johnson, Jenny Lebre, Pedro Salawu-Rotimi, Adeola Vikram, Surendra Makhalanyane, Thulani Cowan, Don Microorganisms Review The Antarctic continent is widely considered to be one of the most hostile biological habitats on Earth. Despite extreme environmental conditions, the ice-free areas of the continent, which constitute some 0.44% of the total continental land area, harbour substantial and diverse communities of macro-organisms and especially microorganisms, particularly in the more “hospitable” maritime regions. In the more extreme non-maritime regions, exemplified by the McMurdo Dry Valleys of South Victoria Land, nutrient cycling and ecosystem servicing processes in soils are largely driven by microbial communities. Nitrogen turnover is a cornerstone of ecosystem servicing. In Antarctic continental soils, specifically those lacking macrophytes, cold-active free-living diazotrophic microorganisms, particularly Cyanobacteria, are keystone taxa. The diazotrophs are complemented by heterotrophic bacterial and archaeal taxa which show the genetic capacity to perform elements of the entire N cycle, including nitrification processes such as the anammox reaction. Here, we review the current literature on nitrogen cycling genes, taxa, processes and rates from studies of Antarctic soils. In particular, we highlight the current gaps in our knowledge of the scale and contribution of these processes in south polar soils as critical data to underpin viable predictions of how such processes may alter under the impacts of future climate change. MDPI 2020-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC7564152/ /pubmed/32967081 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8091442 Text en © 2020 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Ortiz, Max
Bosch, Jason
Coclet, Clément
Johnson, Jenny
Lebre, Pedro
Salawu-Rotimi, Adeola
Vikram, Surendra
Makhalanyane, Thulani
Cowan, Don
Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils
title Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils
title_full Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils
title_fullStr Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils
title_full_unstemmed Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils
title_short Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils
title_sort microbial nitrogen cycling in antarctic soils
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7564152/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32967081
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8091442
work_keys_str_mv AT ortizmax microbialnitrogencyclinginantarcticsoils
AT boschjason microbialnitrogencyclinginantarcticsoils
AT cocletclement microbialnitrogencyclinginantarcticsoils
AT johnsonjenny microbialnitrogencyclinginantarcticsoils
AT lebrepedro microbialnitrogencyclinginantarcticsoils
AT salawurotimiadeola microbialnitrogencyclinginantarcticsoils
AT vikramsurendra microbialnitrogencyclinginantarcticsoils
AT makhalanyanethulani microbialnitrogencyclinginantarcticsoils
AT cowandon microbialnitrogencyclinginantarcticsoils