

Permafrost with Devin Drown
Oct 28, 2022
38:23
Episode Summary Dr. Devin Drown, associate professor of biology and faculty director of the Institute of Arctic Biology Genomics Core at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, discusses how soil disturbance gradients in the permafrost layer impact microbial communities. He also explains the larger impacts of his research on local plant, animal and human populations, and shares his experience surveilling SARS-CoV-2 variants in Alaska, where he and colleagues have observed a repeat pattern of founder events in the state. Ashley's Biggest Takeaways
- Permafrost is loosely defined as soil that has been frozen for 2 or more years in a row.
- Some permafrost can be quite young, but a lot of it is much older—1000s of years old.
- This frozen soil possesses large storage capacity for walking carbon and other kinds of nutrients that can be metabolized by microbes as well as other organisms living above the frozen ground.
- About 85% of the landmass in Alaska is underlined by permafrost. Some is continuous permafrost, while other areas of landmass are discontinuous permafrost—locations where both unfrozen soil and frozen soil are present.
- As this frozen resource is thawing as a result of climate change, it is releasing carbon and changing soil hydrology and nutrient composition, in the active layer in the soil surrounding it.
- Changes in the nutrients and availability of those nutrients are also likely changing the structure of the microbial communities.
- Drown and team are using a combination of traditional (amplicon sequencing) and 3rd generation (nanopore) next sequencing (NGS) techniques to characterize the microbes and genes that are in thawing permafrost soil.