Dataset Information

Aeolian Prokaryotic Communities of the Global Dust Belt Over the Red Sea.

ABSTRACT: Aeolian prokaryotic communities (APC) are important components of bioaerosols that are transported freely or attached to dust particles suspended in the atmosphere. Terrestrial and marine ecosystems are known to release and receive significant prokaryote loads into and from the surrounded atmospheric air. However, compared to terrestrial systems, there is a lack of microbial characterization of atmospheric dust over marine systems, such as the Red Sea, which receives significant terrestrial dust loads and is centrally located within the Global Dust Belt. Prokaryotic communities are likely to be particularly important in the Global Dust Belt, the area between the west coast of North Africa and Central Asia that supports the highest dust fluxes on the planet. Here we characterize the diversity and richness of the APC over the Red Sea ecosystem, the only sea fully contained within the Global Dust Belt. MiSeq sequencing was used to target 16S ribosomal DNA of two hundred and forty aeolian dust samples. These samples were collected at ?7.5 m high above the sea level at coastal and offshore sampling sites over a 2-year period (2015-2017). The sequencing outcomes revealed that the APC in the atmospheric dust is dominated by Proteobacteria (42.69%), Firmicutes (41.11%), Actinobacteria, (7.69%), and Bacteroidetes (3.49%). The dust-associated prokaryotes were transported from different geographical sources and found to be more diverse than prokaryotic communities of the Red Sea surface water. Marine and soil originated prokaryotes were detected in APC. Hence, depending on the season, these groups may have traveled from other distant sources during storm events in the Red Sea region, where the APC structure is influenced by the origin and the concentration of aeolian dust particles. Accordingly, further studies of the impact of atmospheric organic aerosols on the recipient environments are required.

SUBMITTER: Aalismail NA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7688470 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Aeolian Prokaryotic Communities of the Global Dust Belt Over the Red Sea.

Aalismail Nojood A NA Díaz-Rúa Rubén R Ngugi David K DK Cusack Michael M Duarte Carlos M CM

Frontiers in microbiology 20201112

Aeolian prokaryotic communities (APC) are important components of bioaerosols that are transported freely or attached to dust particles suspended in the atmosphere. Terrestrial and marine ecosystems are known to release and receive significant prokaryote loads into and from the surrounded atmospheric air. However, compared to terrestrial systems, there is a lack of microbial characterization of atmospheric dust over marine systems, such as the Red Sea, which receives significant terrestrial dust ...[more]

PMID: 33262740

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Project description:The transition areas of riverine, estuarine, and marine environments are particularly valuable for the research of microbial ecology, biogeochemical processes, and other physical-chemical studies. Although a large number of microbial-related studies have been conducted within such systems, the vast majority of sampling have been conducted over a large span of time and distance, which may lead to separate batches of samples receiving interference from different factors, thus increasing or decreasing the variability between samples to some extent. In this study, a new in situ filtration system was used to collect membrane samples from six different sampling sites along the Sanya River, from upstream freshwater to the sea, over a nine-hour period. We used high-throughput sequencing of 16S and 18S rRNA genes to analyze the diversity and composition of prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities. The results showed that the structures of these communities varied according to the different sampling sites. The α-diversity of the prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities both decreased gradually along the downstream course. The structural composition of prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities changed continuously with the direction of river flow; for example, the relative abundances of Rhodobacteraceae and Flavobacteriaceae increased with distance downstream, while Sporichthyaceae and Comamonadaceae decreased. Some prokaryotic taxa, such as Phycisphaeraceae and Chromobacteriaceae, were present nearly exclusively in pure freshwater environments, while some additional prokaryotic taxa, including the SAR86 clade, Clade I, AEGEAN-169 marine group, and Actinomarinaceae, were barely present in pure freshwater environments. The eukaryotic communities were mainly composed of the Chlorellales X, Chlamydomonadales X, Sphaeropleales X, Trebouxiophyceae XX, Annelida XX, and Heteroconchia. The prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities were split into abundant, common, and rare communities for NCM analysis, respectively, and the results showed that assembly of the rare community assembly was more impacted by stochastic processes and less restricted by species dispersal than that of abundant and common microbial communities for both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Overall, this study provides a valuable reference and new perspectives on microbial ecology during the transition from freshwater rivers to estuaries and the sea.

Project description:The ubiquity and long-range transport of the microorganisms inhabiting dust can pose a serious risk to human, animal, and plant health. The well-recognized importance of dust-associated microorganisms contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of the factors determining the variation in the composition of these communities at the global scale. Here, we provide the first insight into the global determinants of dust-associated microorganisms by quantifying the environmental factors shaping bacterial and fungal community composition in 467 outdoor settled dust samples collected from 33 countries and 6 continents. Our results show that the global variation in dust-associated bacterial and fungal community composition was, to some degree, predictable from mean annual precipitation and temperature. Notably, our results show that the fungal genera Alternaria and Aspergillus, which contain many species that can serve as triggers of allergenic disease in humans and as plant pathogens, were more abundant in drier regions. Collectively, these results highlight the key influence of climate on the global distribution of dust-associated microorganisms and provide the baseline information needed to build a more comprehensive understanding of how microbial exposures vary across the globe and in response to climate change. IMPORTANCE A broad diversity of microorganisms can be found in dust, with some of these microorganisms capable of causing allergenic disease in human via inhalation or affecting plant health by acting as plant pathogens. However, the spatial variation in dust microbiomes and the environmental factors associated with this variation have not been comprehensively assessed at the global scale. Here, we investigated the bacteria and fungi found in outdoor settled dust samples spanning 33 countries and 6 continents. Our results show that dust-associated bacteria and fungi exhibit climate-driven variability in community composition at the global scale. Our results call for the development of strategies to predict the geographic distribution of dust-associated microorganisms and to identify the potential associations between microbial exposures and the health of humans, animals, and plants.

Dataset Information

Aeolian Prokaryotic Communities of the Global Dust Belt Over the Red Sea.

Publications

Aeolian Prokaryotic Communities of the Global Dust Belt Over the Red Sea.

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