Strong Dispersal Limitation of Microbial Communities at Shackleton Glacier, Antarctica
Nathan P. Lemoine, Byron J. Adams, Melisa A. Diaz, Nicholas B. Dragone, André L.C. Franco, Noah Fierer, W. Berry Lyons, Ian D. Hogg, Diana H. Wall
Abstract
Because of their diversity and ubiquity, microbes provide an excellent means to tease apart how natural communities are structured. In general, ecologists believe that stochastic assembly processes, like random drift and dispersal, should dominate in benign environments while deterministic processes, like environmental filtering, should be prevalent in harsh environments. To help resolve this debate, we analyzed microbial community composition in pristine Antarctic soils devoid of human influence or plant communities for eons. Our results demonstrate that dispersal limitation is a surprisingly potent force of community limitation throughout all soil conditions. Thus, dispersal appears to be a driving force of microbial community assembly, even in the harshest of conditions.