Ancient origins determine global biogeography of hot and col

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TitleAncient origins determine global biogeography of hot and cold desert cyanobacteriaAbstractFactors governing large-scale spatio-temporal distribution of microorganisms remain unresolved, yet are pivotal to understanding ecosystem value and function. Molecular genetic analyses have focused on the influence of niche and neutral processes in determining spatial patterns without considering the temporal scale. Here, we use temporal phylogenetic analysis calibrated using microfossil data for a globally sampled desert cyanobacterium, Chroococcidiopsis, to investigate spatio-temporal patterns in microbial biogeography and evolution. Multilocus phylogenetic associations were dependent on contemporary climate with no evidence for distance-related patterns. Massively parallel pyrosequencing of environmental samples confirmed that Chroococcidiopsis variants were specific to either hot or cold deserts. Temporally scaled phylogenetic analyses showed no evidence of recent inter-regional gene flow, indicating populations have not shared common ancestry since before the formation of modern continents. These results indicate that global distribution of desert cyanobacteria has not resulted from widespread contemporary dispersal but is an ancient evolutionary legacy. This highlights the importance of considering temporal scales in microbial biogeography. Copyright 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.AcknowledgementsWe thank the following for critical discussion on earlier versions of this work: Yuki Chan, Don Cowan, Alfonso Davilla, Alex Heri, Wayne Pollard, Mark Stevens. This research was supported by the NASA Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) Programme and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (Grant numbers HKU7733/08 HKU7763/10). J.B., G.J.D.S. and D.V. are supported by the Duke-NUS Signature Research Program funded by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, and the Ministry of Health, Singapore.

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1st AuthorBahl, J.AuthorBahl, J.Lau, M.Smith, G.Vijaykrishna, D.Cary, S.Lacap, D.Lee, C.Papke, R.Warren-Rhodes, K.Wong, F.McKay, C.Pointing, S.Year2011JournalNature CommunicationsVolume2Number1DOI10.1038/ncomms1167URLhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/recor.....53e85d8234d131b04ac95b6ddKeywordsarticlebiogeographyChroococcidiopsisclimatecyanobacteriumdesertecosystemgene flowmicrofossilmolecular geneticsnonhumanphylogenypyrosequencing, ChroococcidiopsisCyanobacteria, rank1

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TypeArticleCitationBahl, J., Lau, M., Smith, G., Vijaykrishna, D., Cary, S., Lacap, D., Lee, C., Papke, R., Warren-Rhodes, K., Wong, F., McKay, C. and Pointing, S. (2011). Ancient origins determine global biogeography of hot and cold desert cyanobacteria. Nature Communications, 2(1) IdentifierBahl2011Relevancerank1

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Cary, S.