Biodiversity and Biogeography of the glacier-fed stream bacterial microbiome

This repository is associated with the NOMIS-funded project 'Vanishing Glaciers' (Tom Battin as PI) aimed at deciphering, among others the biodiversity and biogeography of glacier-fed stream microbiomes around the world. Glaciers are melting worldwide at a rapid pace and it becomes critical to better understand how invisible key players in aquatic ecosystems, such as microbes, respond to changing environmental conditions. The River Ecosystems Laboratory (RIVER) at EPFL and collaborators are exploring glacier-fed streams around the world to unravel their associated microbial biological diversity, and specific mechanisms developed by microbes to cope in such extreme environments. The results will help predict, among others, how global climate change may impact the structure and specific functions of stream microbiomes, and its cascading effects on the biogeochemical cycles, as glaciers further retreat. The Vanishing Glaciers project represents a massive collaborative effort and involves Technical specialists, Civilists, Microbiolgists, Ecologists, Glaciologists from the RIVER lab. at EPFL and collaborators around the globe. This specific repository is associated with the manuscript "Diversity and Biogeography of the global glacier-fed stream microbiome"