Towards a Microbial Conservation Perspective in High Mountain Lakes

Abstract

Microorganisms are fundamental components to maintain the ecological integrity of any ecosystem. Microscopic organisms have been, however, mostly excluded in conservation studies and microbiology has been developed as a scientific discipline lacking a natural history background. The detailed genetic studies carried out in the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park and recent works in the mostly scarce literature, show that the mostly oligotrophic and highly diluted waters in high mountain lakes hold a larger microbial phylogenetic uniqueness than expected and are reservoirs of large evolutionary potential, providing an overall natural history perspective for alpine archaea, bacteria, fungi and protists. Microbes arise as an important part of the biological richness of these environments that should be considered as a fundamental component of the natural heritage. Microbial ecologists are now closer than ever to deal with conservation biology concepts such as biological richness, extinction, biotic interactions, and ecosystems management. First insights emerge for establishing the microbial tolerance to different environmental conditions, for estimating which is the potentiality of survival and dispersal abilities in the different species, and for highlighting how the underappreciated microbiota will respond to stresses and disturbances brought by the global change. Warming and eutrophication may jeopardise the most idiosyncratic microbial populations that have found in these (ultra)oligotrophic and diluted systems the most appropriate conditions to thrive. Environmental managers and lawyers, citizen, and stakeholders, in general, have now access to scientifically informed advice for the unseen microbial life in the unexpectedly rich high mountain microbial ecosystems.