Objective. The Permafrost Microbiome Network was formed to inform our understanding of how microbial communities in permafrost change following permafrost thaw, as well as the functional implications to changes in microbial assembly processes. We expect this to help constrain our understanding of the role of the microbiome in ecosystem feeedbacks (e.g., greenhouse gas production, availability of plant N) from thawed permafrost.
Plan. We are building a database of bacterial, archaeal, and fungal sequences from permafrost soils. In the near term, we expect to produce (1) an overview paper of the state-of-the-knowledge about the permafrost microbiome in a changing Arctic (currently in review at GCB), (2) a Pan-Arctic study on the abiotic (and possibly biotic) biogeography of methanogens and methanotrophs, and (3) a Pan-Arctic study on changes to the taxonomy (and perhaps also functional potential) of the permafrost microbiome with thaw.
Want to join us?
Please contact Jessica Ernakovich if you have a dataset and/or additional knowledge or interest in the project that you would like to contribute.