Universidade de Brasília, Departamento de Botânica, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, s/n, 70910-900 Brasília, DF, Brazil.
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Pós-graduação em Plantas, Fungos e Algas, Campus Universitário, s/n, Sala 208, Bloco E, Córrego Grande, 88040-900 Florianópolis, SC, Brazil.
An Acad Bras Cienc. 2022 Feb 28;94(suppl 1):e20201736. doi: 10.1590/0001-3765202220201736. eCollection 2022.
Antarctica contains most of the glacial ice on the planet, a habitat that is largely unexplored by biologists. Recent warming in parts of Antarctica, particularly the Antarctic Peninsula region, is leading to widespread glacial retreat, releasing melt water and, potentially, contained biological material and propagules. In this study, we used a DNA metabarcoding approach to characterize Viridiplantae DNA present in Antarctic glacial ice. Ice samples from six glaciers in the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula were analysed, detecting the presence of DNA representing a total of 16 taxa including 11 Chlorophyta (green algae) and five Magnoliophyta (flowering plants). The green algae may indicate the presence of a viable algal community in the ice or simply of preserved DNA, and the sequence diversity assigned included representatives of Chlorophyta not previously recorded in Antarctica. The presence of flowering plant DNA is most likely to be associated with pollen or tissue fragments introduced by humans.
南极洲拥有地球上大部分的冰川冰，而这块区域在很大程度上尚未被生物学家探索过。南极洲部分地区，特别是南极半岛地区，近期的变暖导致了冰川的广泛消退，释放出融水，以及可能包含的生物物质和繁殖体。在这项研究中，我们使用 DNA 元条形码方法来描述南极冰川冰中存在的Viridiplantae DNA。对来自南设得兰群岛和南极半岛的六个冰川的冰样本进行了分析，检测到了总共代表 16 个分类群的 DNA 的存在，包括 11 个绿藻（绿藻）和 5 个木兰类植物（开花植物）。绿藻可能表明冰中存在有活力的藻类群落，或者仅仅是保存下来的 DNA，分配的序列多样性包括以前在南极洲没有记录过的绿藻代表。开花植物 DNA 的存在最有可能与人类引入的花粉或组织碎片有关。
