Environmental drivers that influence microalgal species in meltwater pools on the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica
| Autor: | Peter J. Ralph, Donna L. Sutherland, Ian Hawes, Clive Howard-Williams |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
geography geography.geographical_feature_category Environmental change Ecology 010604 marine biology & hydrobiology Biodiversity Species diversity Biology biology.organism_classification 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Ice shelf Diatom Dominance (ecology) Microbial mat General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Meltwater |
| Zdroj: | Polar Biology. 43:467-482 |
| ISSN: | 1432-2056 0722-4060 |
| Popis: | Rich in both microbial mat biomass and species diversity, the meltwater ponds of the McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) form important biodiversity and productivity elements in an otherwise barren landscape. These ponds are thought to be sensitive indicators of climate change-driven fluxes in pond water balance but our ability to predict such effects is confounded by our poor understanding of the inherent variability of these communities in response to the physico-chemical environment. Understanding how microbial communities are shaped across broad physico-chemical gradients may allow better predictions of the effects of climate change on the MIS wetlands. Our study found that distinct clustering of community types against environmental variables was apparent for both the diatom and cyanobacterial communities. For diatoms, conductivity was correlated with the separation of five significantly distinct communities. Significant differences in NH4–N concentrations were correlated to the three distinct cyanobacterial communities but many of the cyanobacteria morphotypes were recorded across a wide ecological range. More distinct community types suggested that diatoms were more sensitive to environmental change in these ponds than the cyanobacteria, despite the latter’s overall dominance. Distinct community clusters for diatoms, and to a lesser extent cyanobacteria, suggest that changes at a functional group level may be more important than at the level of individual species. Further understanding of diatom functional groups would provide us with the opportunity to hindcast past climates and water budgets within the Antarctic region. However, the disconnect between biomass and community composition currently prevents hindcasting past productivities in relation to environmental changes. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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