1] Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand [2] International Centre for Terrestrial Antarctic Research, Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Waikato, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand.
1] Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand [2] International Centre for Terrestrial Antarctic Research, Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Waikato, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand [3] College of Marine and Earth Studies, University of Delaware, Lewes, Delaware 19958, USA.
Nat Commun. 2014 May 20;5:3875. doi: 10.1038/ncomms4875.
New evidence in aerobiology challenges the assumption that geographical isolation is an effective barrier to microbial transport. However, given the uncertainty with which aerobiological organisms are recruited into existing communities, the ultimate impact of microbial dispersal is difficult to assess. Here we use molecular genetic approaches to examine microbial communities inhabiting fumarolic soils on Mount Erebus, the southernmost geothermal site on Earth, to evaluate the ecological significance of global-scale microbial dispersal. There, hot, fumarolic soils provide an effective environmental filter to test the viability of organisms that have been distributed via aeolian transport over geological time. We find that cosmopolitan thermophiles dominate the surface, whereas endemic Archaea and members of poorly understood Bacterial candidate divisions dominate the immediate subsurface. These results imply that aeolian processes readily disperse viable organisms globally, where they are incorporated into pre-existing complex communities of endemic and cosmopolitan taxa.
空气生物学的新证据挑战了这样一种假设，即地理隔离是微生物传播的有效屏障。然而，由于空气生物学生物被招募到现有群落的不确定性，微生物扩散的最终影响很难评估。在这里，我们使用分子遗传学方法来研究栖息在地球最南端的地热场埃里伯斯山的沸腾土壤中的微生物群落，以评估全球规模微生物扩散的生态意义。在那里，炽热的沸腾土壤提供了一个有效的环境过滤器，以测试那些通过风尘传播在地质时间内分布的生物的生存能力。我们发现，世界性的嗜热微生物占据了表面，而地方特有的古菌和尚未充分了解的细菌候选分类群的成员则占据了紧邻的地下。这些结果表明，风尘过程很容易将有活力的生物在全球范围内扩散，它们被纳入到地方特有的和世界性的分类群的预先存在的复杂群落中。
