ICICLES glacier lake metagenome Metagenome. glacier lake metagenome

The objective of the Ice-Covered Icelandic Crater Lake Ecosystem Study (ICICLES) is to understand how available sources of energy and carbon in a volcanic subsurface environment shape the composition and structure of a microbial community. Our study site is a subglacial volcanic lake in Iceland and we have obtained water column samples to determine geologic energy sources in the lake, evaluate whether the major microbial taxa can exploit these energy sources, and reconstruct the pathway of carbon into and within the microbial community. Census of Deep Life-sponsored amplicon sequencing was performed on samples of the same lake in 2011 and these data have been publicly released. The objectives of metagenomic sequencing are to (1) determine the lake metagenome for the same samples on which we will also perform studies of microbial physiology and enrichments, thereby minimizing the effect of differences in sampling or changes in the lake community; (2) use enrichments to flush out additional taxa that were inadequately represented in the metagenome of environmental samples; and (3) search for archaeal DNA (archaea appear to be “missing” from the lake). In addition, we might sample a second, similar lake, enabling comparative studies of the two communities.