Extremophiles, organisms that live in environments outside of the conditions that are well suited to life, need incredible amounts of adaptation to survive. One of the most extreme environments on earth are the lakes in the Taylor Dry Valleys in Antarctica. These lakes are subject to the polar night, as well as increased radiation.Low precipitation in the Taylor Dry Valleys results in very little inflow and outflow from these lakes, and the lack of seasonal heating causes permanent stratification, creating a deeper, hypersaline, sunlight poor and nutrient rich lower layer, and a nutrient poor, sunlight rich upper layer. Even more extreme is the moat environment, a transient space which forms during summer as the edges of the ice melt and create a freshwater, radiation exposed, nutrient poor and isolated region of the lake ecosystem. ACI lineage actinobacteria are prolific oligotrophs found in many freshwater environments which are thought to rely heavily on other microorganisms for vitamins, amino acids, and reduced sulfur, and even a functional catalase protein. Thus, these bacteria’s reliance on their surroundings for essential factors of survival could allow them to be a great indicator of the survival of the community that they live in as a whole. Samples were collected from the moat regions of Lake Fryxell in the Taylor Dry Valleys, sequenced and analyzed using R as part of the Soil-Lake Inundation Moat Experiment (SLIME). These techniques resulted in useful data about the community structure of the interface between the moat and underice environments, and preliminary data reveals that some moat clades are isolated to the Antarctic lakes, possibly signifying that the environment as a whole is unique, and that they are a possible research target for future ecological analysis.
Author(s): Joseph Morgan, Microbiology Major
Advisor(s): Rachael Morgan-Kiss, Department of Microbiology
You must be logged in to post a comment.