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Airborne microbial biodiversity and seasonality in Northern and Southern Sweden
Umeå University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Molecular Biology (Faculty of Medicine). Department of Biological Agents, Division of CBRN Defense and Security, Swedish Defense Research Agency, Umeå, Sweden.
Umeå University, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Molecular Biology (Faculty of Science and Technology).
Umeå University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Molecular Biology (Faculty of Medicine).
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2020 (English)In: PeerJ, E-ISSN 2167-8359, Vol. 8, article id e8424Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Microorganisms are essential constituents of ecosystems. To improve our understanding of how various factors shape microbial diversity and composition in nature it is important to study how microorganisms vary in space and time. Factors shaping microbial communities in ground level air have been surveyed in a limited number of studies, indicating that geographic location, season and local climate influence the microbial communities. However, few have surveyed more than one location, at high latitude or continuously over more than a year. We surveyed the airborne microbial communities over two full consecutive years in Kiruna, in the Arctic boreal zone, and Ljungbyhed, in the Southern nemoral zone of Sweden, by using a unique collection of archived air filters. We mapped both geographic and seasonal differences in bacterial and fungal communities and evaluated environmental factors that may contribute to these differences and found that location, season and weather influence the airborne communities. Location had stronger influence on the bacterial community composition compared to season, while location and season had equal influence on the fungal community composition. However, the airborne bacterial and fungal diversity showed overall the same trend over the seasons, regardless of location, with a peak during the warmer parts of the year, except for the fungal seasonal trend in Ljungbyhed, which fluctuated more within season. Interestingly, the diversity and evenness of the airborne communities were generally lower in Ljungbyhed. In addition, both bacterial and fungal communities varied significantly within and between locations, where orders like Rhizobiales, Rhodospirillales and Agaricales dominated in Kiruna, whereas Bacillales, Clostridiales and Sordariales dominated in Ljungbyhed. These differences are a likely reflection of the landscape surrounding the sampling sites where the landscape in Ljungbyhed is more homogenous and predominantly characterized by artificial and agricultural surroundings. Our results further indicate that local landscape, as well as seasonal variation, shapes microbial communities in air.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
PeerJ , 2020. Vol. 8, article id e8424
Keywords [en]
Airborne biodiversity, Microbial seasonality, High-throughput sequencing, Metabarcoding, eDNA
National Category
Biochemistry Molecular Biology Ecology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-168962DOI: 10.7717/peerj.8424ISI: 000509466300009PubMedID: 32025374Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85079064960OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-168962DiVA, id: diva2:1420889
Available from: 2020-04-01 Created: 2020-04-01 Last updated: 2025-02-20Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Using airborne eDNA to study ecosystem dynamics
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Using airborne eDNA to study ecosystem dynamics
2021 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

In this era of global biodiversity crisis, the need to monitor ecological communities over space and time is more pressing than ever to effectively direct biodiversity conservation and management efforts. To understand the natural dynamics of an ecosystem, and the impact of anthropogenic activities related to environmental and climate change, long time series are needed to accurately link such processes to ecosystem change. This thesis uses a unique resource of archived air filters collected in Sweden originally intended for radioactive particle measurements to reconstruct historical eDNA abundance in the most extensive time-series of airborne eDNA abundance to date - spanning across four decades. By using metabarcoding and metagenomic analysis, it is evident that airborne eDNA from a very large diversity of species is present in air, representing all major branches of the tree of life, including bacteria, fungi, plants, metazoans, and viruses, from a wide range of terrestrial and aquatic sources. These have seasonal as well as long term trends that in part can be explained by temporal variation in climate and regional differences. The data generated in this thesis comprise an extensive resource for analysis of trends related to climate and environmental change and will also allow deeper studies on phenology, phenological change, functional genomics, and potentially antibiotic resistance. The results presented here show the potential of using airborne eDNA to monitor species in the local ecosystem over time and the methods provides an efficient tool for assessment of broad scale biodiversity, in a non-invasive and cost-effective way.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Umeå: Umeå Universitet, 2021. p. 34
National Category
Biochemistry Molecular Biology Ecology Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-189117 (URN)978-91-7855-698-4 (ISBN)978-91-7855-697-7 (ISBN)
Public defence
2021-12-03, Betula, Norrlands Universitetssjukhus, Umeå, 10:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2021-11-12 Created: 2021-11-04 Last updated: 2025-02-20Bibliographically approved

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Karlsson, EdvinJohansson, Anna-MiaStenberg, Per

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