Journal
FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 10, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00628
Keywords
microbial mats; Antarctica; cyanobacteria; trophic web; carbon pathways; stable isotopes; prokaryotic community; eukaryotic community
Categories
Funding
- Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI)
- Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) [CTM2016-79741-R, PCIN-2016-001]
- Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) [CTM2011-28736]
- FPI-contract fellowship from MINECO [BES-2017-080558]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Microbial mats are complex communities that represent a large biomass fraction in non-marine Antarctic ecosystems. They confer structure to soils and constitute, by themselves, intricate microecosystems, where a great variety of microorganisms and microfauna contributes to the ecosystem functions. Although in recent years Antarctic microbial mats have been thoroughly investigated, trophic relationships within the communities remain unresolved. We therefore conducted a study of the trophic relationships of a microbial mat from Byers Peninsula, Antarctica, using DNA analysis and stable isotopes as trophic tracers. Our results suggested, based on a Bayesian mixing model, that at least four trophic levels are present within this microecosystem: primary producers (cyanobacteria and diatoms), primary consumers (rotifers and tardigrades), secondary consumers (nematodes) and decomposers (fungi). Nematodes would play a key role as top consumers of the community, connecting the two carbon inputs described into the system, as omnivores at the secondary trophic level. In addition, carbon pathways from primary trophic level to consumers take place quickly during the first 24 h after its incorporation in the primary producers, dispersing across all the trophic levels and reaching secondary consumers in less than 11 days. This suggests that, given the changing physical conditions and presumably short periods of activity, there is a fine temporal coupling among the organisms in the community, minimizing the redundancy in function performance among trophic levels.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available