Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ArCH4ives (Unlocking the methane cycling archives from Arctic lakes: a biological fingerprint)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2016-03-01 al 2018-02-28
ArCH4ives combines an innovative metagenomic approach on ancient environmental DNA from Holocene lake sediment cores to determine the impact of long-term climate change on microbial CH4 cycling in Arctic lakes.
While providing the Fellow with new expertise in cutting-edge paleogenomics and microbial ecology in world-leading research facilities at the Centre for GeoGenetics, Copenhagen University, ArCH4ives set out to advance paleoecology, gain significant new insights into the global carbon cycle and improve our understanding of the sensitivity of polar ecosystems.
At all selected sites, including newly acquired sequences from the Godthåbsfjord region, Southwest Greenland, we used an optimised 'shotgun' sequencing approach to acquire the microbial community profiles. So far, this strategy yielded ecologically relevant information on the diversity and function of major groups of both CH4 producers (Archaea) and consumers (Bacteria: methanotrophs Type I and Type II), but also on other groups of microbes (Cyanobacteria) and higher organisms including zooplankters (Copepods, Ostracods and Cladocerans), plants (aquatic and terrestrial) and fish (Atlantic salmon, Three-spined stickleback). Changes in the community structure of CH4-microbes effectively reflected major environmental changes that occurred at the sites over the Holocene, however additional analyses are required to determine the impact of climate change alone on these changes.
These results were presented at two well-attended international conferences in the field (IAL-IAH and ArcticNet ASM2018).