Microbial Ecology

A 1,500 km latitudinal transect from Patagonia to the Antarctic Peninsula, sampled across a documented atmospheric-river event (Feb 7–8, 2022). Air, soil, and rhizosphere 16S/ITS combined with ERA5, HYSPLIT, CHIMERE, and FEAST source-apportionment evidence show a phylogenetically broad, terrestrially-sourced Patagonian bioaerosol plume reaching Risopatrón Base — and a baseline of 56% Patagonia attribution in Antarctic-Peninsula air.

Beneath the spectacular waters of Patagonia’s Comau Fjord lives a hidden universe of microbes that regulate our climate, cycle nutrients, and bear the fingerprints of human activity. Here is what we found — and why it matters.

A step-by-step walkthrough of the MAG-based community ecology analyses from our Comau Fjord seasonality paper — including complete R code for all five figures.

The Comau Fjord is an estuarine system in Northern Patagonia (42ºS), Chile: roughly 45 km long and nearly 490 m deep, with steep temperate-rainforest walls dropping straight into the water. High rainfall and snowmelt create a shallow brackish surface layer over a cold, saline body of modified Subantarctic water, producing steep vertical gradients in temperature, salinity, nutrients, and pH. The fjord region is difficult to reach and has almost no laboratory infrastructure — the Huinay Scientific Research Station is the exception that makes this work possible.

Antarctica is the highest, driest, and coldest continent on Earth. Its characteristics make it inhospitable to most multicellular life forms, however, microbes are present in every niche, from underwater lakes to the roots of the two native vascular plants in Antarctica, Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis. Our work in the region follows two interrelated lines: where the plant-associated microbiome comes from and what it does, and how microbes and pollutants arrive from lower latitudes.