The diversity, composition and functions of soil bacterial communities surrounding Syowa Station, East Antarctica, under different intensities of human disturbances

Abstract

Since the establishment of Syowa Station over six decades ago, the study on the terrestrial bacterial community surrounding the station has been notably lacking and inadequately documented. Using the latest sequencing technology, we revealed the soil bacterial composition from soil samples collected from the surrounding of the station. In doing so, we also assessed the effect of human disturbances brought upon by different activities in the proximity of the station, in contrast to those in less human interference and pristine areas. Our results show that human activities near the main station facilities, especially within the 100-m range, visibly changed the structure and functions of the soil microbial community. Areas with high levels of human disturbances displayed a decrease in both microbial diversity and richness, accompanied by a lower count of unique amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) compared to regions with intermediate and low human disturbances. Moreover, higher proportions of functions related to hydrocarbon degradation were also predicted from samples collected within this area. In contrast, soil microbial communities from intermediate and low human disturbances samples have higher proportions of bacterial groups and functions consistent with those in undisturbed natural habitats.