Spatiotemporal microbial community dynamics in seasonal alpine snowpacks

Understanding microbial community dynamics in the alpine cryosphere is an important step towards assessing climate change impacts on these fragile ecosystems and meltwater-fed environments downstream. In this study, we analyzed microbial community composition, and variation in community alpha and beta diversity in seasonal snowpacks from two consecutive years at different mountains along a longitudinal transect across the European Alps. Our study is a first step towards establishing baseline levels of natural variation of microbial community composition and diversity across space and time against which future changes can be compared to assess climate change impacts. Sequencing was performed at the Joint Microbiome Facility of the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna under the project ID JMF-2006-1.