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The microbial diversity, distribution, and ecology of permafrost in China: a review

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Abstract

Permafrost in China mainly located in high-altitude areas. It represents a unique and suitable ecological niche that can be colonized by abundant microbes. Permafrost microbial community varies across geographically separated locations in China, and some lineages are novel and possible endemic. Besides, Chinese permafrost is a reservoir of functional microbial groups involved in key biogeochemical cycling processes. In future, more work is necessary to determine if these phylogenetic groups detected by DNA-based methods are part of the viable microbial community, and their functional roles and how they potentially respond to climate change. This review summaries recent studies describing microbial biodiversity found in permafrost and associated environments in China, and provides a framework for better understanding the microbial ecology of permafrost.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Mingsen Qin, Zhongcai Jin and Yiming Meng for their help in revising the manuscript. Great thanks to the Editor and anonymous reviewers for constructive comments that improved this manuscript. This research was supported by funding from the National Natural Science Foundation (31170482, 31300445, 31370450), PhD Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education (20130211120005), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2013M540780, 2014T70949), National Basic Research Program, China (2012CB026105) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (LZUJBKY-2011-119).

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The authors have no substantial financial or commercial conflicts of interest with the current work or its publication.

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  1. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Cell Activities and Stress Adaptations, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Weigang Hu, Qi Zhang, Tian Tian, Lizhe An & Huyuan Feng

  2. State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineer Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Guodong Cheng

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  1. Weigang Hu
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Correspondence to Huyuan Feng.

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Hu, W., Zhang, Q., Tian, T. et al. The microbial diversity, distribution, and ecology of permafrost in China: a review. Extremophiles 19, 693–705 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-015-0749-y

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