TY - JOUR
T1 - Microbial communities in the tropical air ecosystem follow a precise diel cycle
AU - Gusareva, Elena S.
AU - Acerbi, Enzo
AU - Lau, Kenny J.X.
AU - Luhung, Irvan
AU - Premkrishnan, Balakrishnan N.V.
AU - Kolundzija, Sandra
AU - Purbojati, Rikky W.
AU - Wong, Anthony
AU - Houghton, James N.I.
AU - Miller, Dana
AU - Gaultier, Nicolas E.
AU - Heinle, Cassie E.
AU - Clare, Megan E.
AU - Vettath, Vineeth Kodengil
AU - Kee, Carmon
AU - Lim, Serene B.Y.
AU - Chénard, Caroline
AU - Phung, Wen Jia
AU - Kushwaha, Kavita K.
AU - Nee, Ang Poh
AU - Putra, Alexander
AU - Panicker, Deepa
AU - Yanqing, Koh
AU - Hwee, Yap Zhei
AU - Lohar, Sachin R.
AU - Kuwata, Mikinori
AU - Kim, Hie Lim
AU - Yang, Liang
AU - Uchida, Akira
AU - Drautz-Moses, Daniela I.
AU - Junqueira, Ana Carolina M.
AU - Schuster, Stephan C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/11/12
Y1 - 2019/11/12
N2 - The atmosphere is vastly underexplored as a habitable ecosystem for microbial organisms. In this study, we investigated 795 time-resolved metagenomes from tropical air, generating 2.27 terabases of data. Despite only 9 to 17% of the generated sequence data currently being assignable to taxa, the air harbored a microbial diversity that rivals the complexity of other planetary ecosystems. The airborne microbial organisms followed a clear diel cycle, possibly driven by environmental factors. Interday taxonomic diversity exceeded day-to-day and month-to-month variation. Environmental time series revealed the existence of a large core of microbial taxa that remained invariable over 13 mo, thereby underlining the long-term robustness of the airborne community structure. Unlike terrestrial or aquatic environments, where prokaryotes are prevalent, the tropical airborne biomass was dominated by DNA from eukaryotic phyla. Specific fungal and bacterial species were strongly correlated with temperature, humidity, and CO2 concentration, making them suitable biomarkers for studying the bioaerosol dynamics of the atmosphere.
AB - The atmosphere is vastly underexplored as a habitable ecosystem for microbial organisms. In this study, we investigated 795 time-resolved metagenomes from tropical air, generating 2.27 terabases of data. Despite only 9 to 17% of the generated sequence data currently being assignable to taxa, the air harbored a microbial diversity that rivals the complexity of other planetary ecosystems. The airborne microbial organisms followed a clear diel cycle, possibly driven by environmental factors. Interday taxonomic diversity exceeded day-to-day and month-to-month variation. Environmental time series revealed the existence of a large core of microbial taxa that remained invariable over 13 mo, thereby underlining the long-term robustness of the airborne community structure. Unlike terrestrial or aquatic environments, where prokaryotes are prevalent, the tropical airborne biomass was dominated by DNA from eukaryotic phyla. Specific fungal and bacterial species were strongly correlated with temperature, humidity, and CO2 concentration, making them suitable biomarkers for studying the bioaerosol dynamics of the atmosphere.
KW - Air microbiome
KW - Bioaerosols
KW - Microbial ecology
KW - Temperature
KW - Tropics
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1908493116
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1908493116
M3 - Article
C2 - 31659049
AN - SCOPUS:85074789068
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 116
SP - 23299
EP - 23308
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 46
ER -
