The Importance of Temperature and Nitrogen Speciation on Bacterial Diversity in Stream Sediments in the McMurdo Dry Valleys

Once called the Valleys of the Dead, the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica have been shown to harbor life that can withstand some of the coldest, windiest, driest and extreme conditions on Earth. The Dry Valleys are often referred to as `ecosystems waiting for water' because of the rapid response of biological activity when liquid water appears. Although our understanding of life in the Valleys is progressing, there are numerous unanswered questions about how the organisms survive there. Most of the attention in this delicate ecosystem has been focused on nematodes and lake and stream algal mat communities. Microbe abundances in stream sediments not associated with mats are only an order of a magnitude lower than those found in temporal streams. Yet very little is known about the metabolic capabilities, energy demands, nutrient requirements and genomes of these organisms. In December of 2004, sediment and water quality samples were collected from 19 streams in Taylor Valley. Bacterial DNA was extracted from the sediments and 16S rRNA amplified using 8f and 926r bacterial primers. Terminal Restriction Length Polymorphism (tRFLP) analysis was used to obtain community diversity fingerprints for all stream sites. The Bonney Basin had the most diverse bacterial assemblages on the basis of such fingerprints. There was no correlation between bacterial diversity and algal mat presence or absence, indicating that bacterial diversity does not depend on mats. Statistical analysis comparing water chemistry data and diversity indicates that temperature and nitrogen speciation and concentration are important factors contributing to diversity in these oligotrophic streams. Five clone libraries were sequenced and used to determine the major bacteria present in the streams. Approximately 15% of the sequences had less than a 97% similarity to any known bacterial sequence present in GenBank, suggesting a high incidence of bacterial species unique to the Dry Valleys. This research is the first step toward understanding the microbial communities in this ecosystem and will provide the foundation for studies on biogeochemical function and microbe survival. These will not only be important for better understanding the dry valleys but will likely give insights into new anti-freeze proteins, desiccation mechanisms and UV-damaged DNA repair strategies which are of societal importance.