Characterization of microbial communities in initial soils of King George Island, Antarctic Peninsula region

Three hyperskeletic Cryosols in the recently (<50 years) deglaciated foreland of the Ecology Glacier and a cambic Cryosol behind a lateral moraine deglaciated >100 years ago were investigated by combining soil chemical and microbiological methods. All soils are formed from the same substrate and have a similar topographic position. For microbiological analysis, we extracted triplicates of total genomic DNA from 0.5 g of soil of each depth increment. We applied qPCR and HiSeq 16S rRNA amplicon analysis. All soil profiles were dominated by bacterial phyla such as Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Acidobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, and Chloroflexi. Multiple clusters of abundant OTUs depending on the site-specific characteristics and depth were detected. Changes in soil properties were accompanied by changes in microbial abundances, microbial community compositions, and plant coverage.