PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Coleine, Claudia
AU  - Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel
AU  - Zerboni, Andrea
AU  - Turchetti, Benedetta
AU  - Buzzini, Pietro
AU  - Selbmann, Laura
TI  - Rock traits drive complex microbial communities at the edge of life
AID  - 10.1101/2021.08.04.455018
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.08.04.455018
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/08/04/2021.08.04.455018.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/08/04/2021.08.04.455018.full
AB  - Antarctic deserts are among the driest and coldest ecosystems of the planet; there, some microbes hang on to life under these extreme conditions inside porous rocks, forming the so-called endolithic communities. Yet, the contribution of distinct rock traits to support complex microbial assemblies remains poorly determined. Here, we combined an extensive Antarctic rock survey with rock microbiome sequencing and ecological networks, and found that contrasting combinations of microclimatic and rock traits such as thermal inertia, porosity, iron concentration and quartz cement can help explain the multiple complex and independent microbial assemblies found in Antarctic rocks. Our work highlights the pivotal role of rocky substrate heterogeneity in sustaining contrasting groups of microorganisms, which is essential to understand life at the edge on Earth, and for searching life on other rocky planets such as Mars.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.