Microbes in Cryosphere: Opportunities and Challenges

Authors

CHEN Tuo, State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
ZHANG Wei, Key Laboratory of Extreme Environmental Microbial Resources and Engineering of Gansu Province, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
LIU Guangxiu, Key Laboratory of Extreme Environmental Microbial Resources and Engineering of Gansu Province, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
LI Shiweng, Key Laboratory of Extreme Environmental Microbial Resources and Engineering of Gansu Province, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China; School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China

Keywords

cryosphere; microbes; climate change

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The cryosphere is one of the biomes on Earth. In recent years, studies on microorganisms in cold habitats has been mainly focused on the Earth's cryosphere, including glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice, lake ice, and permafrost. Most of the microbial groups harboring in cryosphere are cold-adapted microbes, many of which are still unknown. Psychrophiles are important strategy resources in the fields of scientific research and low temperature biotechnology. The cryosphere also seals many unknown ancient pathogenic bacteria, fungi, and virus to animals, plants, and human beings. The cold habitats and harsh conditions in the cryosphere shape the diverse microbial populations that pose unique adaptability for survival in such extreme environments. Since highly sensitive to climate changes, the cryosphere is changing as indicated by the retreat of glaciers and ice sheets as well as permafrost thawing under global warming. The habitats where the microbes of cryosphere survive on are shrinking. The release of these microbes from the cryosphere, such as the glacier and ice retreat and permafrost thawing, might be a great threat to human society. Additionally, frozen ecosystems are also of much interest as analogues of extraterrestrial habitats. Therefore, a deeply understanding of the role and potential of microbial life in cryosphere habitats has become crucial.

First page

434

Last Page

442

Language

Chinese

Publisher

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences

References

Garcia-Lopez E, Cid C. Glaciers and ice sheets as analog environments of potentially habitable icy worlds. Frontier in Microbiology, 2017, 8:1407.

Gilichinsky D A, Wagener S. Microbial life in permafrost:A historical review. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 1995, 6:243-250.

Boetius A, Aneesio A M, Deming J W, et al. Microbial ecology of the cryosphere:Sea ice and glacial habitats. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 2015, 13:677-690.

Graham D E, Wallenstein M D, Vishnivetskaya T A, et al. Microbes in thawing permafrost:The unknown variable in the climate change equation. ISME Journal, 2012, 6:709-712.

Gilichinsky D A, Vorobyova E A, Erokhina L G, et al. Longterm preservation of microbial ecosystems in permafrost. Advances in Space Research, 1992, 12(4):255-263.

Hassan N, Rafiq M, Hayat M, et al. Psychrophilic and psychrotrophic fungi:A comprehensive review. Reviews in Environmental Science and Biotechnology, 2016, 15:147-172.

Cameron K, Hagedorn B, Dieser M, et al. Diversity and potential sources of microbiota associated with snow on western portions of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Environmental Microbiology, 2015, 17(3):594-609.

Miteva V I, Sheridan P P, Brenchley J E. Phylogenetic and physiological diversity of microorganisms isolated from a deep Greenland glacier ice core. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2004, 70:202-213.

Anesio A M, Laybourn-Parry J. Glaciers and ice sheets as a biome. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 2012, 27(4):219-225.

Sanyal A, Antony R, Samui G, et al. Microbial communities and their potential for degradation of dissolved organic carbon in cryoconite hole environments of Himalaya and Antarctica. Microbiological Research, 2018, 208:32-42.

Singh P, Tsuji M, Singh S M, et al. Taxonomic characterization, adaptation strategies and biotechnological potential of cryophilic yeasts from ice cores of Midre Lovénbreen glacier, Svalbard, Arctic. Cryobiology, 2013, 66:167-175.

Turchetti B, Buzzini P, Goretti M, et al. Psychrophilic yeasts in glacial environments of Alpine glaciers. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2008, 63:73-83.

Bellas C M, Anesio A M. High diversity and potential origins of T4-type bacteriophages on the surface of Arctic glaciers. Extremophiles, 2013, 17:861-870.

Rassner S M E, Anesio A M, Girdwood S E, et al. Can the bacterial community of a high arctic glacier surface escape viral control? Frontier in Microbiology, 2016, 7:956.

Adriaenssens E M, Kramer R, Van Goethem M W, et al. Environmental drivers of viral community composition in Antarctic soils identified by viromics. Microbiome, 2017, 5:83.

Zablocki O, van Zyl L, Adriaenssens E M, et al. High-level diversity of tailed phages, eukaryote-associated viruses, and virophage-like elements in the metaviromes of Antarctic soils. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2014, 80:6888-6897.

Paterson H, Laybourn-Parry J. Antarctic sea ice viral dynamics over an annual cycle. Polar Biology, 2012, 35:491-497.

Rastrojo A, Alcamí A. Viruses in polar lake and soil ecosystems. Advances in Virus Research, 2018, 101:39-54.

Sommers P, Fontenele R S, Kringen T, et al. Single-stranded DNA viruses in Antarctic cryoconite holes. Viruses, 2019, 11:1022.

Lopez-Bueno A, Tamames J, Velazquez D, et al. High diversity of the viral community from an Antarctic lake. Science, 2009, 326:858-861.

Luhtanen A M, Eronen-Rasimus E, Oksanen H M, et al. The first known virus isolates from Antarctic sea ice have complex infection patterns. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2018, 94(4), doi:10.1093/femsec/fiy028.

Madan N J, Marshall W A, Laybourn-Parry J. Virus and microbial loop dynamics over an annual cycle in three contrasting Antarctic lakes. Freshwater Biology, 2005, 50:1291-1300.

Zhong Z, Solonenko N E, Li Y, et al. Glacier ice archives fifteen-thousand-year-old viruses. bioRxiv, 2020, doi:10.1101/2020.01.03.894675.

Legendre M, Bartoli J, Shmakova L, et al. Thirty-thousandyear-old distant relative of giant icosahedral DNA viruses with a pandoravirus morphology. PNAS, 2014, 111(11):4274-4279.

Colangelo-Lillis J, Eicken H, Carpenter S D, et al. Evidence for marine origin and microbial-viral habitability of sub-zero hypersaline aqueous inclusions within permafrost near Barrow, Alaska. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2016, 92:1-15.

Zhang B, Tang S, Chen X, et al. Streptomyces lacrimifluminis sp. nov., a novel actinobacterium that produces antibacterial compounds, isolated from soil. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, 2016, 66:4981-4986.

Zhang B, Tang S, Chen X, et al. Streptomyces qaidamensis sp. nov., isolated from sand in the Qaidam Basin, China. The Journal of Antibiotics, 2018, 71:880-886.

Bowman J P. Genomics of psychrophilic bacteria and archaea//Margesin R, ed. Psychrophiles: From Biodiversity to Biotechnology. Switzerland: Springer, 2017: 345-387.

An M, Mou S, Zhang X, et al. Temperature regulates fatty acid desaturases at a transcriptional level and modulates the fatty acid profile in the Antarctic microalga Chlamydomonas sp. ICE-L. Bioresource Technology, 2013, 134:151-157.

Tsuji M, Yokota Y, Kudoh S, et al. Improvement of direct ethanol fermentation from woody biomasses by the Antarctic basidiomycetous yeast, Mrakia blollopis, under a low temperature condition. Cryobiology, 2014, 68(2):303-305.

Collins T, Margesin R. Psychrophilic life styles:Mechanisms of adaptation and biotechnological tools. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 2019, 103(7):2857-2871.

Simon C, Wiezer A, Strittmatter A W, et al. Phylogenetic Diversity and metabolic potential revealed in a glacier ice metagenome. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2009, 75:7519-7526.

Cauvy-Fraunié S, Dangles O. A global synthesis of biodiversity responses to glacier retreat. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2019, 3:1675-1685.

Nikrad M P, Kerkhof L J, Häggblom M M. The subzero microbiome:Microbial activity in frozen and thawing soils. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2016, 92(6):1-16.

Gilichinsky D A, Wilson G S, Friedmann E I, et al. Microbial populations in Antarctic permafrost:Biodiversity, state, age, and implication for astrobiology. Astrobiology, 2007, 7:275-311.

Frey B, Rime T, Phillips M, et al. Microbial diversity in European alpine permafrost and active layers. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2016, 92(3):1-17.

Irvine-Fynn T D, Edwards A. A frozen asset:The potential of flow cytometry in constraining the glacial biome. Cytometry Part A, 2014, 85:3-7.

Anesio A M, Mindl B, Laybourn-Parry J, et al. Viral dynamics in cryoconite holes on a high Arctic glacier (Svalbard). Journal of Geophysical Research:Biogeosciences, 2007, 112:G04S31.

Donhauser J, Frey B. Alpine soil microbial ecology in a changing world. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2018, 94:fiy099

Hu W G, Zhang Q, Tian T, et al. The microbial diversity, distribution, and ecology of permafrost in China:A review. Extremophiles, 2015, 19(4):693-705.

Recommended Citation

Tuo, CHEN; Wei, ZHANG; Guangxiu, LIU; and Shiweng, LI (2020) "Microbes in Cryosphere: Opportunities and Challenges," Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version): Vol. 35 : Iss. 4 , Article 5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.16418/j.issn.1000-3045.20200228003
Available at: https://bulletinofcas.researchcommons.org/journal/vol35/iss4/5