Bacteria in the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau and polar regions

Keshao Liu; Tandong Yao; David A. Pearce; Nianzhi Jiao; Yonghui Zeng; Bixi Guo; Yongqin Liu

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142248

Bacteria in the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau and polar regions

Keshao Liu, Tandong Yao, David A. Pearce, Nianzhi Jiao, Yonghui Zeng, Bixi Guo, Yongqin Liu^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Environmental Science - Environmental Microbiology

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau, also termed ‘the Third Pole’ harbors the largest number of high-altitude lakes in the world. Due to the presence of extreme conditions such as low temperature and oligotrophy, the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau share environmental features in common with lakes in the polar regions. However, the extent to which these environments are analogous, or indeed whether they harbor similar microbial communities or a high level of endemic species is poorly understood. Here we compared high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing data from the lakes of the three different regions in order to characterize their taxonomic diversity, the community composition and biogeography. Our results showed despite the similarity in environmental conditions, the spatial distribution of the bacterial communities was distinct with only 3.1% of all operational taxonomic units (OTUs) being present in all three regions (although these OTUs did account for a considerable proportion of the total sequences, 36.4%). Sequences belonging to Burkholderiales and Actinomycetales dominated the shared OTUs across all three regions. Scale dependent distance decay patterns provided evidence of dispersal limitation. Climatic variables and dispersal limitation were apparently both important in controlling the spatial distribution of bacterial communities across regions. This work expands our understanding of the diversity and biogeography of lake bacterial communities across the Tibetan Plateau and provides insights into how they compare to those of the Antarctic and Arctic.

Original language	English
Article number	142248
Journal	Science of the Total Environment
Volume	754
Number of pages	9
ISSN	0048-9697
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142248
Publication status	Published - Feb 2021

Keywords

Dispersal limitation
Lake bacterial communities
Spatial distribution
The third pole

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@article{23a857bb7cc04557afb042f2d1d11625,

title = "Bacteria in the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau and polar regions",

abstract = "The Tibetan Plateau, also termed {\textquoteleft}the Third Pole{\textquoteright} harbors the largest number of high-altitude lakes in the world. Due to the presence of extreme conditions such as low temperature and oligotrophy, the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau share environmental features in common with lakes in the polar regions. However, the extent to which these environments are analogous, or indeed whether they harbor similar microbial communities or a high level of endemic species is poorly understood. Here we compared high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing data from the lakes of the three different regions in order to characterize their taxonomic diversity, the community composition and biogeography. Our results showed despite the similarity in environmental conditions, the spatial distribution of the bacterial communities was distinct with only 3.1\% of all operational taxonomic units (OTUs) being present in all three regions (although these OTUs did account for a considerable proportion of the total sequences, 36.4\%). Sequences belonging to Burkholderiales and Actinomycetales dominated the shared OTUs across all three regions. Scale dependent distance decay patterns provided evidence of dispersal limitation. Climatic variables and dispersal limitation were apparently both important in controlling the spatial distribution of bacterial communities across regions. This work expands our understanding of the diversity and biogeography of lake bacterial communities across the Tibetan Plateau and provides insights into how they compare to those of the Antarctic and Arctic.",

keywords = "Dispersal limitation, Lake bacterial communities, Spatial distribution, The third pole",

author = "Keshao Liu and Tandong Yao and Pearce, \{David A.\} and Nianzhi Jiao and Yonghui Zeng and Bixi Guo and Yongqin Liu",

note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) (Grant Nos. 2019QZKK0201 and 2019QZKK0503 ), the Strategic Priority Research Program (A) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. XDA20050101 and XDA19070304 ), the National Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFC1509100 ) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41425004 and 41771086 ). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 Elsevier B.V. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

year = "2021",

month = feb,

doi = "10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142248",

language = "English",

volume = "754",

journal = "Science of the Total Environment",

issn = "0048-9697",

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T1 - Bacteria in the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau and polar regions

AU - Liu, Keshao

AU - Yao, Tandong

AU - Pearce, David A.

AU - Jiao, Nianzhi

AU - Zeng, Yonghui

AU - Guo, Bixi

AU - Liu, Yongqin

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) (Grant Nos. 2019QZKK0201 and 2019QZKK0503 ), the Strategic Priority Research Program (A) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. XDA20050101 and XDA19070304 ), the National Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFC1509100 ) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41425004 and 41771086 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Elsevier B.V. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021/2

Y1 - 2021/2

N2 - The Tibetan Plateau, also termed ‘the Third Pole’ harbors the largest number of high-altitude lakes in the world. Due to the presence of extreme conditions such as low temperature and oligotrophy, the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau share environmental features in common with lakes in the polar regions. However, the extent to which these environments are analogous, or indeed whether they harbor similar microbial communities or a high level of endemic species is poorly understood. Here we compared high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing data from the lakes of the three different regions in order to characterize their taxonomic diversity, the community composition and biogeography. Our results showed despite the similarity in environmental conditions, the spatial distribution of the bacterial communities was distinct with only 3.1% of all operational taxonomic units (OTUs) being present in all three regions (although these OTUs did account for a considerable proportion of the total sequences, 36.4%). Sequences belonging to Burkholderiales and Actinomycetales dominated the shared OTUs across all three regions. Scale dependent distance decay patterns provided evidence of dispersal limitation. Climatic variables and dispersal limitation were apparently both important in controlling the spatial distribution of bacterial communities across regions. This work expands our understanding of the diversity and biogeography of lake bacterial communities across the Tibetan Plateau and provides insights into how they compare to those of the Antarctic and Arctic.

AB - The Tibetan Plateau, also termed ‘the Third Pole’ harbors the largest number of high-altitude lakes in the world. Due to the presence of extreme conditions such as low temperature and oligotrophy, the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau share environmental features in common with lakes in the polar regions. However, the extent to which these environments are analogous, or indeed whether they harbor similar microbial communities or a high level of endemic species is poorly understood. Here we compared high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing data from the lakes of the three different regions in order to characterize their taxonomic diversity, the community composition and biogeography. Our results showed despite the similarity in environmental conditions, the spatial distribution of the bacterial communities was distinct with only 3.1% of all operational taxonomic units (OTUs) being present in all three regions (although these OTUs did account for a considerable proportion of the total sequences, 36.4%). Sequences belonging to Burkholderiales and Actinomycetales dominated the shared OTUs across all three regions. Scale dependent distance decay patterns provided evidence of dispersal limitation. Climatic variables and dispersal limitation were apparently both important in controlling the spatial distribution of bacterial communities across regions. This work expands our understanding of the diversity and biogeography of lake bacterial communities across the Tibetan Plateau and provides insights into how they compare to those of the Antarctic and Arctic.

KW - Dispersal limitation

KW - Lake bacterial communities

KW - Spatial distribution

KW - The third pole

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85091583447

U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142248

DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142248

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33254884

AN - SCOPUS:85091583447

SN - 0048-9697

VL - 754

JO - Science of the Total Environment

JF - Science of the Total Environment

M1 - 142248

ER -

Bacteria in the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau and polar regions

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Keywords

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