Nutrient acquisition, rather than stress response over diel cycles, drives microbial transcription in a dessicated Namib Desert soil

León‐Sobrino, Carlos; Ramond, Jean‐Baptiste; Maggs‐Kölling, Gillian; Cowan, Don A.

doi:10.1101/432427

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 72 publications

(92 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This work has been made available as a preprint ahead of publication in the bioRxiv repository (León-Sobrino et al, 2018) and was assigned the doi: 10.1101/432427 (see References).…”

Section: Author’s Notementioning

confidence: 99%

Nutrient Acquisition, Rather Than Stress Response Over Diel Cycles, Drives Microbial Transcription in a Hyper-Arid Namib Desert Soil

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Hot desert surface soils are characterized by extremely low water activities for large parts of any annual cycle. It is widely assumed that microbial processes in such soils are very limited. Here we present the first metatranscriptomic survey of microbial community function in a low water activity hyperarid desert soil. Sequencing of total mRNA revealed a diverse and active community, dominated by Actinobacteria. Metatranscriptomic analysis of samples taken at different times over 3 days indicated that functional diel variations were limited at the whole community level, and mostly affected the eukaryotic subpopulation which was induced during the cooler night hours. High levels of transcription of chemoautotrophic carbon fixation genes contrasted with limited expression of photosynthetic genes, indicating that chemoautotrophy is an important alternative to photosynthesis for carbon cycling in desiccated desert soils. Analysis of the transcriptional levels of key N-cycling genes provided strong evidence that soil nitrate was the dominant nitrogen input source. Transcriptional network analyses and taxon-resolved functional profiling suggested that nutrient acquisition processes, and not diurnal environmental variation, were the main drivers of community activity in hyperarid Namib Desert soil. While we also observed significant levels of expression of common stress response genes, these genes were not dominant hubs in the co-occurrence network.

show abstract

“…This work has been made available as a preprint ahead of publication in the bioRxiv repository (León-Sobrino et al, 2018) and was assigned the doi: 10.1101/432427 (see References).…”

Section: Author’s Notementioning

confidence: 99%

Nutrient Acquisition, Rather Than Stress Response Over Diel Cycles, Drives Microbial Transcription in a Hyper-Arid Namib Desert Soil

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Microbiomics of Namib Desert habitats

Cowan

Hopkins

Jones³

et al. 2019

Extremophiles

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Namib Desert is the world's only truly coastal desert ecosystem. Until the end of the first decade of the 21 st Century, very little was known of the microbiology of this south-western African desert, with the few reported studies being based solely on culture-dependent approaches. However, from 2010, an intense research program undertaken by researchers from the University of the Western Cape Institute for Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics, and subsequently the University of Pretoria Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, and their collaborators, led to a more detailed understanding of the ecology of the indigenous microbial communities in many Namib Desert biotopes. Namib Desert soils and the associated specialised niche communities are inhabited by a wide array of prokaryotic, lower eukaryotic and virus/phage taxa. These communities are highly heterogeneous on both small and large spatial scales, with community composition impacted by a range of macro-and micro-environmental factors, from water regime to soil particle size. Community functionality is also surprisingly non-homogeneous, with some taxa retaining functionality even under hyper-arid soil conditions, and with subtle changes in gene expression and phylotype abundances even on diel timescales. 1Despite the growing understanding of the structure and function of Namib Desert microbiomes, there remain enormous gaps in our knowledge. We have yet to quantify many of the processes in these soil communities, from regional nutrient cycling to community growth rates. Despite the progress that has been made, we still have little knowledge of either the role of phages in microbial community dynamics, or inter-species interactions. Furthermore, the intense research efforts of the past decade have highlighted the immense scope for future microbiological research in this dynamic, enigmatic and charismatic region of Africa.

show abstract

Nutrient acquisition, rather than stress response over diel cycles, drives microbial transcription in a dessicated Namib Desert soil

Cited by 2 publications

References 72 publications

Nutrient Acquisition, Rather Than Stress Response Over Diel Cycles, Drives Microbial Transcription in a Hyper-Arid Namib Desert Soil

Nutrient Acquisition, Rather Than Stress Response Over Diel Cycles, Drives Microbial Transcription in a Hyper-Arid Namib Desert Soil

Microbiomics of Namib Desert habitats

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About