Exploring benthic diatom diversity in the West Antarctic Peninsula: insights from a morphological and molecular approach

Polar regions are among the most extreme habitats on Earth. However, diatom biodiversity in those regions is much more extensive and ecologically diverse than previously thought. The objective of this study was to add knowledge to benthic diatom biodiversity in Western Antarctic coastal zones via identification by means of morphology, DNA metabarcoding and cultured isolates. In addition, a taxonomically validated reference library for Antarctic benthic diatoms was established with comprehensive information on habitat, morphology and DNA barcodes (rbcL and 18SV4). Benthic samples from marine, brackish and freshwater habitats were taken at the Antarctic Peninsula. A total of 162 clonal cultures were established, resulting in the identification of 60 taxa. The combination of total morphological richness of 174 taxa, including the clones, with an additional 73 taxa just assigned by metabarcoding resulted in 247 infrageneric taxa. Of those taxa, 33 were retrieved by all three methods and 111 only by morphology. The barcode reference library of Antarctic species with the new references obtained through culturing allowed the assignment of 47 taxa in the metabarcoding analyses, which would have been left unassigned because no matching reference sequences were available before. Non-metric multidimensional scaling analyses of morphological as well as molecular data showed a clear separation of diatom communities according to water and substratum types. Many species, especially marine taxa, still have no record in reference databases. This highlights the need for a more comprehensive reference library to further improve routine diatom metabarcoding. Overall, a combination of morphological and molecular methods, along with culturing, provides complementary information on the biodiversity of benthic diatoms in the region.