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Bacterial, Archaeal and Fungal Succession in the Forefield of a Receding Glacier

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

Glacier forefield chronosequences, initially composed of barren substrate after glacier retreat, are ideal locations to study primary microbial colonization and succession in a natural environment. We characterized the structure and composition of bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities in exposed rock substrates along the Damma glacier forefield in central Switzerland. Soil samples were taken along the forefield from sites ranging from fine granite sand devoid of vegetation near the glacier terminus to well-developed soils covered with vegetation. The microbial communities were studied with genetic profiling (T-RFLP) and sequencing of clone libraries. According to the T-RFLP profiles, bacteria showed a high Shannon diversity index (H) (ranging from 2.3 to 3.4) with no trend along the forefield. The major bacterial lineages were Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes and Cyanobacteria. An interesting finding was that Euryarchaeota were predominantly colonizing young soils and Crenarchaeota mainly mature soils. Fungi shifted from an Ascomycota-dominated community in young soils to a more Basidiomycota-dominated community in old soils. Redundancy analysis indicated that base saturation, pH, soil C and N contents and plant coverage, all related to soil age, correlated with the microbial succession along the forefield.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support for this study was provided by the “Biosphere–geosphere interactions: Linking climate change, weathering, soil formation and ecosystem evolution (BigLink)” project of the Competence Centre Environment and Sustainability (CCES) of the ETH Domain. It was also supported by the Genetic Diversity Centre (GDC) of the ETH Zurich. We thank Martin Hartmann and Yves Wurmitzer for their help with the phylogenetic analysis. We are also grateful to Gerhard Furrer and Michael Plötze for valuable discussions. Additionally, we would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their valuable input in improving this manuscript. Finally, we thank our linguistic lecturer Silvia Dingwall for correcting and improving the English text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forest Soils and Biogeochemistry, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Anita Zumsteg, Jörg Luster, Ivano Brunner & Beat Frey

  2. Institute for Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Hans Göransson

  3. Environment Centre Wales, Bangor University, Bangor, LL57 2UW, UK

    Hans Göransson

  4. Geological Institute, ETH Zürich, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Rienk H. Smittenberg & Stefano M. Bernasconi

  5. Department of Geological Sciences, Stockholm University, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Rienk H. Smittenberg

  6. Institute for Biogeochemistry and Pollution Dynamics, ETH Zürich, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Josef Zeyer

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  1. Anita Zumsteg
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Correspondence to Beat Frey.

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Fig. S1

Bacterial phylogenetic tree calculated by Bayesian inference using 748 bp, showing affiliation of clones to closest related sequences of different cold and soil habitats and other reference sequences. The spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi (L36160) was chosen as outgroup. Young 2-year-old site clones (named 1_b), intermediate 62-year-old site clones (7_b) and old 110-year-old site clones (18_b) are shown. For clarity, we removed similar sequences in the tree. The accession numbers of the reference sequences are given in brackets. Posterior probabilities from the Bayesian analysis are only shown when below 75% (DOC 42 kb)

Fig. S2

Archaeal phylogenetic tree calculated by Bayesian inference using 570 bp, showing affiliation of clones to closest related sequences of different cold and soil habitats and other reference sequences. The Korarchaeota (AF255604) was chosen as outgroup. Young 2-year-old site clones (named 1_a), intermediate 62-year-old site clones (7_a) and old 110-year-old site clones (18_a) are shown. For clarity, we removed similar sequences in the tree. The accession numbers of the reference sequences are given in brackets. Posterior probabilities from the Bayesian analysis are only shown when below 75% (DOC 49 kb)

Fig. S3

Fungal phylogenetic tree calculated by Bayesian inference using 751bp, showing affiliation of clones to closest related sequences of different cold and soil habitats and other reference sequences. A member of the Chytridiomycota, Cladochytrium sp. (AB586077) was chosen as outgroup. Young 2 year-old site clones (named 1_f); intermediate 62 year-old site clones (7_f) and old 110 year-old site clones (18_f) are shown. For clarity we removed similar sequences in the tree. The accession numbers of the reference sequences are given in brackets. Posterior probabilities from the Bayesian analysis are only shown when below 75%. (DOC 59 kb)

Table S1

Results of sequence analysis of bacteria, archaea and fungi for the young (site 0, 2-year-old soil), intermediate (site 6, 62-year-old soil) and old soil (site 17, 110-year-old soil), calculated with Mothur with a 97% identity for a unique genus. A total of 192 clones were recovered for each phylogenetic group and site. After RFLP pattern analysis for selecting the clones with unique OTUs, 100 bacterial clones, 64 archaeal clones and 50 fungal clones were sequenced (DOC 37 kb)

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Zumsteg, A., Luster, J., Göransson, H. et al. Bacterial, Archaeal and Fungal Succession in the Forefield of a Receding Glacier. Microb Ecol 63, 552–564 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-011-9991-8

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