Decisive role of soil cover types for organic matter pools and microbial communties in Antarctic soils Raw sequence reads

Mosses and biological soil crusts play a crucial role for multiple soil functions such as nutrient cycling and provide habitats and activity hotspots for unique soil microbial communities. Yet, despite representing the two main biological soil cover types in maritime Antarctica, it remains largely elusive how they specifically impact subjacent SOM pools, and belowground microbial communities in this fragile ecosystem. We provide evidence that the soil cover types exerted differential influences, for example were major SOM compound groups and microbial biomass more abundant under biocrusts, while microbial mass-specific activity was elevated under mosses. We further advert that bryophytes should not be considered as a uniform functional group regarding their impacts on belowground functioning, since moss-species-specific effects can occur. Under the perspective of rapid climate change that might cause substantial shifts in species abundance and distribution patterns, our results suggest impacts on various soil characteristics and microbial processes with implications for the ecology and functioning of these vulnerable ecosystems. Sequencing was performed at the Joint Microbiome Facility of the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna under the project ID JMF-1903-5.