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Novel lichen-dominated hypolithic communities in the Namib Desert
The ventral surfaces of translucent rocks from hot desert pavements often harbor hypolithic microbial communities, which are mostly dominated by cyanobacteria. The Namib Desert fog belt supports extensive hypolithic colonization of quartz rocks, which are also colonized by lichens on their dorsal su...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer US
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9015988/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34312709 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00248-021-01812-w |
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author | de los Ríos, Asunción Garrido-Benavent, Isaac Limón, Alicia Cason, Errol D. Maggs-Kölling, Gillian Cowan, Don Valverde, Angel |
author_facet | de los Ríos, Asunción Garrido-Benavent, Isaac Limón, Alicia Cason, Errol D. Maggs-Kölling, Gillian Cowan, Don Valverde, Angel |
author_sort | de los Ríos, Asunción |
collection | PubMed |
description | The ventral surfaces of translucent rocks from hot desert pavements often harbor hypolithic microbial communities, which are mostly dominated by cyanobacteria. The Namib Desert fog belt supports extensive hypolithic colonization of quartz rocks, which are also colonized by lichens on their dorsal surfaces. Here, we aim to evaluate whether lichens colonize the ventral surface of the rocks (i.e., show hypolithic lifestyle) and compare the bacterial composition of these coastal hypolithic communities with those found inland. Fungal DNA barcoding and fungal and bacterial Illumina metabarcoding were combined with electron microscopy to characterize the composition and spatial structure of hypolithic communities from two (coastal and inland) areas in the Namib Desert. We report, for the first time, the structure and composition of lichen-dominated hypolithic communities found in the coastal zone of the Namib Desert with extensive epilithic lichen cover. Lichen modified areoles with inverted morphology of the genus Stellarangia (three lineages) and Buellia (two lineages) were the main components of these hypolithic communities. Some of these lineages were also found in epilithic habitats. These lichen-dominated hypolithic communities differed in structural organization and bacterial community composition from those found in inland areas. The hypolithic lichen colonization characterized here seems not to be an extension of epilithic or biological soil crust lichen growths but the result of specific sublithic microenvironmental conditions. Moisture derived from fog and dew could be the main driver of this unique colonization. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00248-021-01812-w. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9015988 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-90159882022-05-02 Novel lichen-dominated hypolithic communities in the Namib Desert de los Ríos, Asunción Garrido-Benavent, Isaac Limón, Alicia Cason, Errol D. Maggs-Kölling, Gillian Cowan, Don Valverde, Angel Microb Ecol Soil Microbiology The ventral surfaces of translucent rocks from hot desert pavements often harbor hypolithic microbial communities, which are mostly dominated by cyanobacteria. The Namib Desert fog belt supports extensive hypolithic colonization of quartz rocks, which are also colonized by lichens on their dorsal surfaces. Here, we aim to evaluate whether lichens colonize the ventral surface of the rocks (i.e., show hypolithic lifestyle) and compare the bacterial composition of these coastal hypolithic communities with those found inland. Fungal DNA barcoding and fungal and bacterial Illumina metabarcoding were combined with electron microscopy to characterize the composition and spatial structure of hypolithic communities from two (coastal and inland) areas in the Namib Desert. We report, for the first time, the structure and composition of lichen-dominated hypolithic communities found in the coastal zone of the Namib Desert with extensive epilithic lichen cover. Lichen modified areoles with inverted morphology of the genus Stellarangia (three lineages) and Buellia (two lineages) were the main components of these hypolithic communities. Some of these lineages were also found in epilithic habitats. These lichen-dominated hypolithic communities differed in structural organization and bacterial community composition from those found in inland areas. The hypolithic lichen colonization characterized here seems not to be an extension of epilithic or biological soil crust lichen growths but the result of specific sublithic microenvironmental conditions. Moisture derived from fog and dew could be the main driver of this unique colonization. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00248-021-01812-w. Springer US 2021-07-27 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9015988/ /pubmed/34312709 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00248-021-01812-w Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Soil Microbiology de los Ríos, Asunción Garrido-Benavent, Isaac Limón, Alicia Cason, Errol D. Maggs-Kölling, Gillian Cowan, Don Valverde, Angel Novel lichen-dominated hypolithic communities in the Namib Desert |
title | Novel lichen-dominated hypolithic communities in the Namib Desert |
title_full | Novel lichen-dominated hypolithic communities in the Namib Desert |
title_fullStr | Novel lichen-dominated hypolithic communities in the Namib Desert |
title_full_unstemmed | Novel lichen-dominated hypolithic communities in the Namib Desert |
title_short | Novel lichen-dominated hypolithic communities in the Namib Desert |
title_sort | novel lichen-dominated hypolithic communities in the namib desert |
topic | Soil Microbiology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9015988/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34312709 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00248-021-01812-w |
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