Regional fresh snowfall microbiology and chemistry are driven by geography in storm-tracked events, Colorado, USA

Abstract

Snowfall is a global phenomenon highly integrated with hydrology and ecology. Forays into studying bioaerosols and their dependence on aeolian movement are largely constrained to either precipitation-independent analyses or in silico models. Though snowpack and glacial microbiological studies have been conducted, little is known about the biological component of meteoric snow. Through culture-independent phylogenetic and geochemical analyses, we show that the geographical location at which snow precipitates determines snowfall’s geochemical and microbiological composition. Storm-tracking, furthermore, can be used as a valuable environmental indicator to trace down what factors are influencing bioaerosols. We estimate annual aeolian snowfall deposits of up to ∼10 kg of bacterial/archaeal biomass per hectare along our study area of the eastern Front Range in Colorado. The dominant kinds of microbiota captured in an analysis of seven snow events at two different locations, one urban, one rural, across the winter of 2016/2017 included phylaProteobacteria,Bacteroidetes,Firmicutes, andAcidobacteria, though a multitude of different kinds of organisms were found in both. Taxonomically,Bacteroideteswere more abundant in Golden (urban plain) snow whileProteobacteriawere more common in Sunshine (rural mountain) samples. Chemically, Golden snowfall was positively correlated with some metals and anions. The work also hints at better informing the “everything is everywhere” hypotheses of the microbial world and that atmospheric transport of microbiota is not only common, but is capable of disseminating vast amounts of microbiota of different physiologies and genetics that then affect ecosystems globally. Snowfall, we conclude, is a significant repository of microbiological material with strong implications for both ecosystem genetic flux and general bio-aerosol theory.