A database of glacier prokaryotic genomes and genes for the Three Poles

Abstract

Glaciers cover 10 % of Earth's land area and are a pool of carbon and nitrogen for downstream ecosystems. Microbes, including bacteria, fungi, algae, and other microeukaryotes, are the primary inhabitants of glacier ecosystems and are key drivers of carbon and nitrogen transformation. Among them, prokaryotes (including bacteria and archaea) are the most diverse and abundant. Here, we present a dataset of supraglacial bacterial and archaeal (referred to as prokaryotic hereafter) communities across the Antarctic, Arctic, Tibetan Plateau, and other alpine regions. The dataset comprises 2039 amplicon sequencing data points, 999 cultured bacterial genomes, and 208 metagenomes, covering ice, snow, and cryoconite habitats. The dataset contains 64 510 prokaryotic amplicon sequencing phylotypes, with a higher diversity in the Tibetan glaciers than in the Antarctic and Arctic glaciers, which were respectively enriched with Gammaproteobacteria, Bacteroidota, and Alphaproteobacteria. The dataset also contains 62 595 715 unique genes and 4501 prokaryotic genomes, a 35.5 % expansion from previous publications. Genes were annotated for those associated with carbohydrate-active enzymes, nitrogen cycling, methane cycling, antimicrobial resistance, and microbial virulence, revealing the dynamic microbial functions in glacial habitats. This comprehensive dataset provides standardized prokaryotic diversity, taxonomy, community structure, and genetic functions of glacial microbiomes. The data can be leveraged to elucidate ecological principles governing the distribution of prokaryotes, to gain insights into the key functional genes for supraglacial microbiomes, to build mechanistic models, and to identify any potential biohazards for policymakers to make informed decisions regarding climate change. The dataset is available at the Global Glacier Genome and Gene Database (https://nmdc.cn/4gdb/, last access: 11 July 2025; DOI: 10.11888/Cryos.tpdc.300830, Liu et al., 2023).