Studying organisms that live and thrive in perennially ice-covered lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valley of Antarctica is the primary focus of Dr. Morgan-Kiss’s lab. Dr. Morgan-Kiss finds it important to compare her findings with other researchers around the world who study similar lakes. Key characteristics these lakes need to share to be included in this particular study were that the lakes must be covered by ice for a significant length of the year, there must need to be little no intermixing between the layers of the lake, and the lakes must be very nutrient-poor. These unique lakes were found in the Antarctic, the Tibetan plateau, and the High Arctic.
After discovering the lakes that met these specific environmental parameters next, researchers had to search for published sequences of 18S rRNA. Which was used to sequence the genome eukaryotic organisms found in each of these lakes. finding lakes that fit the
environmental parameters for the study and had 18S rRNA sequencing published by the researchers was an essential part of the research. Next, researchers used CLC workbench to compare the genetic sequences.
What our genetic analysis showed is that the lakes in each of the three geographic areas are significantly diverse and unique to one another. With that being said these lakes did share several of the same Eukaryotic phyla. The samples from the Tibetan lake had the greatest amount of eukaryotic genetic diversity among the samples and that the Arctic lakes had the least amount of genetic diversity. The Antarctic samples also were more genetically similar to the samples taken from the lake in Tibet. When looking at the overall abundance of organisms from the three lakes it was discovered that the majority of these Eukaryotic organisms were photosynthetic or heterotrophic organisms.
Going forward it will be fascinating to study how increased genetic sequencing and climate change changes our understanding of these unique environments and the organisms that live in these harsh environments.
Author: Michael Wagner
Faculty Advisor: Racheal Morgan-Kiss, Department of Microbiology
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