Antarctic Microbial Biodiversity(AMBIO) samples

Study Extent

The lake samples came from 5 regions of Antarctica - Eastern Antarctica: Larsemann Hills, Broknes Peninsula (L59b) and Fiilla Island (Rauer2) - Eastern Antarctica: Vestfold Hills (Highway, Waterfall) and Bunger Hills (M5) - Transantarctic Mountains: Forlidas Valley in Dufek Massif (Forlidas pond) and Shackleton Range (Lundström lake) - Antarctic Peninsula: Horseshoe Island (Col1 lake) - Lützow-Holm Bay: West Ongul, East Ongul, Langhovde, Skarvsness,

Sampling

In Mago Lake, surface sediments were sampled at a depth of 5.8m using a UWITEC gravity corer (UWITEC, Mondsee, Austria). In the remaining lakes, samples were taken in the littoral zone at ca. 20 cm depth and ca. 40 cm from the lake edge, by manually collecting microbial mats attached to rocks and gravel. All samples were kept frozen (−20◦C) until analysis (Pessi et al. 2018). In the Larsemann Hills, for lake LH59b when no ice cover was present (lakes <2 m deep), samples were taken between 0.5 and 1 m in the littoral zone. All samples were frozen until analysis and stored in the dark (Sabbe et al.2004). For Rauer2, live samples of microbial mat (including cyanobacteria, diatoms and other micro algae) were collected from the littoral zone of the lake and stored under light in sterile culture tubes containing growth media. Samples of microbial mats were also frozen for use in community composition studies (Hodgson et al. 2001). For Forlidas pond, biological material was collected manually from lake littoral. Samples for microscopic investigation were preserved in Lugol’s iodine solution or ethanol and those for molecular analysis were frozen. All sampling equipment was scrubbed with Virkon multi-purpose disinfectant before use, and subsamples were collected in sterile WhirlPak bags or acid-washed bottles (Hodgson et al. 2010). For Lutzow-Holm Bay, sediment cores were extracted using a UWITEC gravity corer for surface sediments (Verleyen et al. 2017)

Quality Control

The samples were taken as sterily as possible.

Method steps

1. See publications: Sabbe et al. 2004 10.1111/j.1365-2427.2004.01186.x. Hodgson et al. 2001 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102001000372 Hodgson et al. 2010 doi:10.1016/j.polar.2010.04.003 Verleyen et al. 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.06.003 Pessi et al. 2018 doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiy042

all sort of microorganisms

1. Bacteria
   rank: domain
2. Cyanobacteria
   rank: phylum

Antarctic continent