Endolithic Microbial Communities of Different Types of Rocks in the Norwegian High Arctic

Abstract

Introduction and methods The high Arctic has long been considered a suitable terrestrial analogue to Mars in many geological and astrobiological aspects [1]. We used a combination of pyrosequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA gene and statistical methods to conduct a survey of the composition of microbial communities in rocks from Svalvard. This study investigates the correlation between major elements of rocks and endolithic colonization in the harsh Arctic environment. Results and Discussion The results of the Mantel test showed that the bacterial community structure was significantly linked to some of the rock element factors (Table 1). When data for each phylum were analyzed separately, the Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria exhibited a significant positive relationship with Al and K(except for Proteobacteria), Fe, Mg, P, and Ti, while, Chloroflexi was significant positively linked with only P. Therefore, the endolithic bacterial community at the phylum level might be affected by different rock element factors. All kinds of microbes play a remarkably diverse set of geoactive roles in the biosphere [2]. This study demonstrates the interaction of rock-microbes with metals and minerals, as well as their importance in geological and environmental processes