Microbial carbon metabolism strategies in proglacial aquatic ecosystems of the Tibetan Plateau

Glacier retreat on the Tibetan Plateau has led to the formation of diverse proglacial aquatic ecosystems that play an important role in regional carbon cycling. This project investigates the composition, assembly processes, and carbon metabolic potential of microbial communities in sediments from three representative proglacial aquatic ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau. Using metagenomic sequencing, we examine microbial carbon fixation, organic matter degradation, methane metabolism, and metabolite exchange strategies across different successional stages. The results reveal distinct shifts from autotrophy-driven, functionally redundant communities to heterotrophy-dependent and functionally specialized communities, regulated by environmental factors such as pH, dissolved organic matter, and weathering-derived ions. This dataset provides a genomic resource for understanding microbial-mediated carbon cycling and ecosystem evolution in cold-region proglacial environments under climate warming.