Snow algae communities in Antarctica - metabolic and taxonomic composition

Davey, Matthew P.; Norman, Louisa; Sterk, Peter; Huerte-Ortega, Maria; Bunbury, Freddy; Loh, Bradford; Stockton, Sian; Peck, Lloyd S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3479-6791; Convey, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8497-9903; Newsham, Kevin K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9108-0936; Smith, Alison G.. 2019 Snow algae communities in Antarctica - metabolic and taxonomic composition. New Phytologist, 222 (3). 1242-1255. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15701

Before downloading, please read NORA policies.

Preview

Text (Open Access) © 2019 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2019 New Phytologist Trust This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Davey_et_al-2019-New_Phytologist.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (2MB) | Preview

Text "This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: New Phytologist, which has been published in final form at [Link to final article using the DOI]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions." DAVEY_FINAL_ACCEPTED_VERSION.pdf - Accepted Version Restricted to NORA staff only Download (1MB) | Request a copy

Abstract/Summary

Snow algae are found in snowfields across cold regions of the planet, forming highly visible red and green patches below and on the snow surface. In Antarctica, they contribute significantly to terrestrial net primary productivity due to the paucity of land plants, but our knowledge of these communities is limited. Here we provide the first description of the metabolic and species diversity of green and red snow algae communities from four locations in Ryder Bay (Adelaide Island, 68°S), Antarctic Peninsula. During the 2015 austral summer season, we collected samples to measure the metabolic composition of snow algae communities and determined the species composition of these communities using metabarcoding. Green communities were protein‐rich, had a high chlorophyll content and contained many metabolites associated with nitrogen and amino acid metabolism. Red communities had a higher carotenoid content and contained more metabolites associated with carbohydrate and fatty acid metabolism. Chloromonas, Chlamydomonas and Chlorella were found in green blooms but only Chloromonas was detected in red blooms. Both communities also contained bacteria, protists and fungi. These data show the complexity and variation within snow algae communities in Antarctica and provide initial insights into the contribution they make to ecosystem functioning.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15701
ISSN:	0028646X
Additional Keywords:	Antarctic Peninsula, snow algae, lipids, pigments, metabarcoding
Date made live:	30 Jan 2019 09:12 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/520615

Actions (login required)

View Item

Document Downloads

More statistics for this item...