Bacterial diversity of Drass, cold desert in Western Himalaya, and its comparison with Antarctic and Arctic

Abstract

Drass is the coldest inhabited place in India and the second coldest, inhabited place in the world, after Siberia. Using the 16SrDNA amplicon pyrosequencing, bacterial diversity patterns were cataloged across the Drass cold desert. In order to identify the ecotype abundance across cold desert environment, bacterial diversity patterns of Drass were further compared with the bacterial diversity of two other cold deserts, i.e., Antarctic and Arctic. Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes were among the highly abundant taxonomic groups present across all the three cold deserts and were designated as the core phyla. However, Firmicutes, Nitrospirae, Armatimonadetes (former candidate division OP10), Planctomycetes, TM7, Chloroflexi, Deinococcus-Thermus, Tenericutes and candidate phyla WS3 were identified as rare phyla in Drass, Antarctic and Arctic samples. Differential abundance patterns were also computed across all the three samples, i.e., Acidobacteria (32.1 %) were dominant in Drass and Firmicutes (52.9 ± 17.6 %) and Proteobacteria (42 ± 1.3 %) were dominant in Antarctic and Arctic reference samples, respectively. Alpha diversity values Shannon's (H) and Simpson's (1-D) diversity indices were highest for Antarctic samples, whereas richness estimators (ACE and Chao1) were maximum for Drass soil suggesting greater species richness in bacterial communities in Drass than the Antarctic and Arctic samples.

Recovery of metallo-tolerant and antibiotic resistant psychrophilic bacteria from Siachen glacier, Pakistan

“…Previous investigations from pristine cold environments like ancient Siberian permafrost, alpine glacier cryoconite and non-anthropogenic alpine soil [29, 55, 56] opposed our results as bacteria from such environments have been reported to have greater sensitivity to antibiotics. However, wide distribution and multiple antibiotic resistance genes have been previously documented in different glaciers except antarctic glaciers and has been well described by transmission of migratory birds and air borne bacteria [57].…”

“…Actinobacteria are potent producers of antimicrobial compounds and thus can have dominant role in generating a stress on other microbial life. Bacterial diversity of soil samples from Drass, India a coldest place after Siberia, was explored and screened for various hydrolytic enzymes [29]. Phylogenetic analysis revealed 40 different bacteria, grouped into three major phyla, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes differentiated into 17 different genera.…”

Microbial Ecology from the Himalayan Cryosphere Perspective

“…The abundance of Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Firmicutes in the Himalayan region was similar to the bacterial genera found in the other colder regions (such as Antarctic and Arctic) [46,55]. Because of the environmental similarities between polar areas, microbial components have been found similar, to some extent, in both the colder regions.…”

Effects of element complexes containing Fe, Zn and Mn on artificial morel’s biological characteristics and soil bacterial community structures

“…It was lower than ck in most experimental groups, perhaps due to a decrease in the numbers of Nitrospirae strains requiring nitrogen. Chlorobacteria and Nitrospirae were also reported to be the dominant bacteria in activated sludge in wastewater treatment, which can degrade ammonia-nitrogen and organic chlorides [34–36]. Acidobacteria plays an important role in maintaining the pH value [37,38] and influences metal uptake activity [39,40].…”