Permafrost meta-omics and climate change

TY - JOUR

T1 - Permafrost meta-omics and climate change

AU - Mackelprang, Rachel

AU - Saleska, Scott R.

AU - Jacobsen, Carsten Suhr

AU - Jansson, Janet K.

AU - Taş, Neslihan

N1 - CENPERMOA[2016]

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Permanently frozen soil, or permafrost, covers a large portion of the Earth's terrestrial surface and represents a unique environment for cold-adapted microorganisms. As permafrost thaws, previously protected organic matter becomes available for microbial degradation. Microbes that decompose soil carbon produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, contributing substantially to climate change. Next-generation sequencing and other -omics technologies offer opportunities to discover the mechanisms by which microbial communities regulate the loss of carbon and the emission of greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost regions. Analysis of nucleic acids and proteins taken directly from permafrost-associated soils has provided new insights into microbial communities and their functions in Arctic environments that are increasingly impacted by climate change. In this article we review current information from various molecular -omics studies on permafrost microbial ecology and explore the relevance of these insights to our current understanding of the dynamics of permafrost loss due to climate change.

AB - Permanently frozen soil, or permafrost, covers a large portion of the Earth's terrestrial surface and represents a unique environment for cold-adapted microorganisms. As permafrost thaws, previously protected organic matter becomes available for microbial degradation. Microbes that decompose soil carbon produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, contributing substantially to climate change. Next-generation sequencing and other -omics technologies offer opportunities to discover the mechanisms by which microbial communities regulate the loss of carbon and the emission of greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost regions. Analysis of nucleic acids and proteins taken directly from permafrost-associated soils has provided new insights into microbial communities and their functions in Arctic environments that are increasingly impacted by climate change. In this article we review current information from various molecular -omics studies on permafrost microbial ecology and explore the relevance of these insights to our current understanding of the dynamics of permafrost loss due to climate change.

KW - Arctic

KW - Bioinformatics

KW - Global warming

KW - Metagenomics

KW - Microbiology

KW - Next-generation sequencing

U2 - 10.1146/annurev-earth-060614-105126

DO - 10.1146/annurev-earth-060614-105126

M3 - Review

AN - SCOPUS:84977119859

SN - 0084-6597

VL - 44

SP - 439

EP - 462

JO - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

JF - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

ER -