Patterns and drivers of prokaryotic communities in thermokarst lake water across Northern Hemisphere

Aim: The formation of thermokarst lakes could make a large amount of carbon accessible to microbial degradation, potentially intensifying the permafrost carbon-climate feedback via carbon dioxide/methane emissions. Because of their diverse functional roles, prokaryotes play a key role in mediating biogeochemical cycles in thermokarst lakes. However, little is known about the large-scale patterns and drivers of these communities.
Location: Permafrost regions in the Northern Hemisphere.
Time Period: Present day.
Major taxa studied: Prokaryotes.
Methods: Based on a combination of large-scale measurements on the Tibetan Plateau and data syntheses in pan-Arctic regions, we constructed a comprehensive dataset of 16S rRNA sequences from 258 thermokarst lakes across Northern Hemisphere permafrost regions. We also used the local contributions to beta diversity (LCBD) to characterize the variance of prokaryotic species composition and screened underlying drivers by conducting a random forest mode...