Airborne microbes from thawing permafrost landscapes in the Arctic, Northern Alaska, 2021

This study focuses on Northern Alaska’s thawing of permafrost, reintroducing ancient microorganisms to the environment. As the Arctic continues to warm, the purpose of this dataset is to explore the local microbial sources of bioaerosols in the Utqiaġvik region, including cryosphere elements that can be introduced to the atmosphere when thawed. The objective of the study is to assess a broad range of environmental samples collected in September 2021 (09/01/2021 - 09/18/2021) including bioaerosols, permafrost, active layer, ice wedges, thermokarst lake water, lagoon water, seawater, foam, water body sediments, coastal bluffs, and vegetation samples. Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) was extracted from all sample types, followed by amplicon sequencing (16S rRNA V4 region), then followed by bioinformatics analysis with QIIME2, DADA2, decontam, and SourceTracking2 analyses.

本研究聚焦阿拉斯加北部多年冻土（permafrost）消融现象及其向环境中重新释放古老微生物的过程。随着北极地区持续升温，本数据集旨在探究乌特恰维克（Utqiagvik）区域生物气溶胶（bioaerosols）的本土微生物来源，涵盖消融后可进入大气的冰冻圈（cryosphere）组分。本研究的目标是对2021年9月（2021年9月1日至2021年9月18日）采集的多类环境样本进行评估，样本类型涵盖生物气溶胶、多年冻土、活动层（active layer）、冰楔（ice wedges）、热融湖（thermokarst lake）湖水、潟湖水、海水、泡沫、水体沉积物、海岸陡崖及植被样本。研究人员对所有样本类型均提取了脱氧核糖核酸（DNA），随后开展扩增子测序（16S rRNA V4区），并借助QIIME2、DADA2、decontam及SourceTracking2工具完成生物信息学分析。