Soil Microbiomes Across Depth and Ecosystems in Dubai, UAE: Potential Environmental Signatures for Forensic...

Area of Science:

• Environmental microbiology
• Metagenomics
• Hyper-arid ecosystems

Background:

• Soil microbial communities are sensitive to environmental factors like land use and depth.
• Hyper-arid regions present unique challenges for microbial life, with limited data on soil microbial distribution.
• Understanding microbial community structure is crucial for ecological assessments and potential applications like geolocation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize soil microbial community composition across different land-use types and depths in a hyper-arid environment (Dubai, UAE).
• To identify key environmental drivers (land use and depth) influencing microbial distribution.
• To explore the potential of microbial fingerprints for forensic geolocation.

Main Methods:

• Whole-genome shotgun metagenomics using Oxford Nanopore Technologies long-read sequencing.
• Sampling across six contrasting land-use sites (urban, industrial, marine, desert, agricultural) at three depth intervals (0-25 cm, 25-50 cm, 50-100 cm).
• Statistical analyses including PERMANOVA and Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) ordination.

Main Results:

• Actinomycetota and Pseudomonadota were dominant phyla across all sites (77%-96%).
• Land use was the primary driver of microbial community composition (PERMANOVA, p=0.001), followed by depth (p≤0.01).
• Distinct microbial fingerprints were observed for each land-use type, with a notable compositional reversal in deep desert soils.

Conclusions:

• Land use significantly shapes soil microbial communities in hyper-arid environments, more so than soil depth.
• Each environment possesses a unique microbial signature, indicating potential for forensic geolocation applications.
• Further research into these distinct microbial fingerprints could advance ecological and forensic science in arid regions.