ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Ecol. Evol.
Sec. Natural History Insights
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fevo.2025.1670481
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring the Hidden Diversity of Eukaryotic MicroorganismsView all articles
Change in relative abundances, more so than species turnover, modulates ß-diversity and network complexity in communities of eukaryotic microorganisms from glacial to periglacial environments
Provisionally accepted
- Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The cryosphere is facing unprecedented changes due to global change, and one of its main consequences is on the connectivity of ice-snow and downstream habitats in the glacial and periglacial landscape. Here, we analyze the eukaryotic community composition and the ecological processes structuring eukaryotic communities in the glacial environment of Mount Tronador (North-Patagonia, Argentina). The study was carried out in Castaño Overo and Alerce glaciers, including three different compartments: glacial ice, snow, and ponds in the glacier forefield. All compartments showed low dissolved and particulate nutrient concentrations. Genomic DNA analyses revealed a high eukaryotic microorganism's diversity, and a high proportion of shared taxa (>35%), resulting in low presence-absence ß-diversity. However, abundance-based ß-diversity is higher among compartments, underscoring that changes in abundances are significant regardless of the large number of shared ASVs. Ice and snow showed a predominance of Fungi, while Chlorophyta increased its importance in ponds. Ciliophora and Dinoflagellates were almost exclusively present in ice and ponds, respectively. The co-occurrence network analysis showed a higher number of modules and modularity in ice and snow relative to ponds. The presence of modules with algae and fungi (Pucciomycotina and Chytridiomycotina) would reflect a functional association due to the nutritional dependence of fungi on the algae. More connectors between modules were detected in ice and snow (5 and 6) relative to ponds (only 1). Most of these connectors were fungi that could also indicate their dependence on more than one species association (module). Overall, our results showed that as ice and snow melt due to global 2 change, eukaryotes will undergo community reorganization that will affect downstream environments.
Keywords: eukaryotic communities, Glacier, Snow, glacial forefield, eukaryotic diversity, Network analysis, North-Patagonian Andes
Received: 21 Jul 2025; Accepted: 09 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Modenutti, Vega, Navarro, Martyniuk and Balseiro. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Beatriz Estela Modenutti, bmodenutti@comahue-conicet.gob.ar
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.