DNA metabarcoding of non-fungal eukaryotic diversity in air and snow of Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica

8 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, supplementary material https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v44.8293

A major natural route of dispersal to Antarctica is often assumed to be atmospheric transport, although few studies have documented this in detail. Aerial dispersal to Antarctica is very challenging as the continent is geographically remote from other land areas and is isolated by the atmospheric circumpolar vortex. Detailed information about aerial routes by which microorganisms arrive and circulate in Antarctica is generally lacking, as few aerobiological studies have focused on eukaryotes and those that have predominantly relied on traditional morphological identification. Recent advances in molecular biology, such as DNA metabarcoding by high throughput sequencing (HTS), have provided a powerful new tool for the study of atmospheric biological diversity and can retrieve levels of diversity an order of magnitude higher than traditional methods. In this study, we used HTS to investigate the diversity of non-fungal eukaryotes present in the atmosphere and freshly precipitated snow on Livingston Island. In a total of 740 m3 of air and 3.76 L of snow sampled, representatives of four kingdoms (Protozoa, Chromista, Viridiplantae and Animalia) and five phyla (Ciliophora, Ochrophyta, Chlorophyta, Magnoliophyta and Porifera) were found. The most diverse phylum was Chlorophyta, represented in our samples by 10 taxa, with Trebouxia asymmetrica Friedl & Gärtner the most abundant representative

This study was supported by the Danish National Research Foundation (grant agreement no. DNRF106 to the Stellar Astrophysics Centre, Aarhus University), the Villum Fonden (research grants 23175 and 37435) and the NOVO Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme (research grant NNF19OC0056963). This study also received financial support from the Brazilian Antarctic Program (PROANTAR), CNPq, CAPES, MCTI, FAPEMG and INCT Criosfera 2. Peter Convey is supported by Natural Environment Research Council core funding to the British Antarctic Survey’s Biodiversity, Evolution and Adaptation Team

With the institutional support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S)

Peer reviewed