Research Commons
      • Browse 
        • Communities & Collections
        • Titles
        • Authors
        • By Issue Date
        • Subjects
        • Types
        • Series
      • Help 
        • About
        • Collection Policy
        • OA Mandate Guidelines
        • Guidelines FAQ
        • Contact Us
      • My Account 
        • Sign In
        • Register
      View Item 
      •   Research Commons
      • University of Waikato Research
      • Science and Engineering
      • Science and Engineering Papers
      • View Item
      •   Research Commons
      • University of Waikato Research
      • Science and Engineering
      • Science and Engineering Papers
      • View Item
      JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

      Environmental drivers of viral community composition in Antarctic soils identified by viromics

      Adriaenssens, Evelien M.; Kramer, Rolf; Van Goethem, Marc W.; Makhalanyane, Thulani P.; Hogg, Ian D.; Cowan, Don A.
      Thumbnail
      Files
      2017 hogg et al Microbiome.pdf
      Published version, 1.145Mb
      DOI
       10.1186/s40168-017-0301-7
      Link
       microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com
      Find in your library  
      Citation
      Export citation
      Adriaenssens, E. M., Kramer, R., Van Goethem, M. W., Makhalanyane, T. P., Hogg, I. D., & Cowan, D. A. (2017). Environmental drivers of viral community composition in Antarctic soils identified by viromics. Microbiome, 5(83). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-017-0301-7
      Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/11468
      Abstract
      Background

      The Antarctic continent is considered the coldest and driest place on earth with simple ecosystems, devoid of higher plants. Soils in the ice-free regions of Antarctica are known to harbor a wide range of microorganisms from primary producers to grazers, yet their ecology and particularly the role of viruses is poorly understood. In this study, we examined the virus community structures of 14 soil samples from the Mackay Glacier region.

      Methods

      Viral communities were extracted from soil and the dsDNA was extracted, amplified using single-primer amplification, and sequenced using the Ion Torrent Proton platform. Metadata on soil physico-chemistry was collected from all sites. Both read and contig datasets were analyzed with reference-independent and reference-dependent methods to assess viral community structures and the influence of environmental parameters on their distribution.

      Results

      We observed a high heterogeneity in virus signatures, independent of geographical proximity. Tailed bacteriophages were dominant in all samples, but the incidences of the affiliated families Siphoviridae and Myoviridae were inversely correlated, suggesting direct competition for hosts. Viruses of the families Phycodnaviridae and Mimiviridae were present at significant levels in high-diversity soil samples and were found to co-occur, implying little competition between them. Combinations of soil factors, including pH, calcium content, and site altitude, were found to be the main drivers of viral community structure.

      Conclusions

      The pattern of viral community structure with higher levels of diversity at lower altitude and pH, and co-occurring viral families, suggests that these cold desert soil viruses interact with each other, the host, and the environment in an intricate manner, playing a potentially crucial role in maintaining host diversity and functioning of the microbial ecosystem in the extreme environments of Antarctic soil.
      Date
      2017
      Type
      Journal Article
      Publisher
      BioMed Central
      Rights
      © 2017The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
      Collections
      • Science and Engineering Papers [3124]
      Show full item record  

      Usage

      Downloads, last 12 months
      72
       
       
       

      Usage Statistics

      For this itemFor all of Research Commons

      The University of Waikato - Te Whare Wānanga o WaikatoFeedback and RequestsCopyright and Legal Statement