Statistical Models Reveal the Effects of Atmospheric Black Carbon on Glacial Bacterial Abundance on the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Ice cores play an important role in the reconstruction of historical atmospheric information. The glacier of the Tibetan Plateau is influenced by the Indian monsoon and westerly winds, which divide the Tibetan Plateau into monsoon- and westly influenced regions. These atmospheric circulations bring distinct microbial communities to glaciers, with the microbial dispersal process being also influenced by atmospheric factors. However, the potential influence of between bacterial abundance and atmospheric factors is not well known. To reveal potential mechanisms controlling bacterial abundance between two regions, we obtained bacterial abundance and atmospheric records for the past 46 years from two ice cores located within these regions. Statistical regression models were constructed to fit the relationship between bacterial abundance and atmospheric factors. Generalized additive model (GAM) was superior in modeling bacterial abundance compared with linear models and showed that the key factors affecting bacterial abundance were different in the monsoon- and westerly-dominated regions. Specifically, atmospheric dust and black carbon were the key factors for the monsoon-dominated region, and westerly index was the key factor for the westerly-dominated region. The model outputs confirm that atmospheric black carbon plays an important role in affecting bacterial abundance for the glacier located within the monsoon-dominated region, particularly in recent decades. The model also predicted that bacterial abundance will increase by 27% with a doubled black carbon deposition. We quantify and model for the first time that relationship between bacterial abundance and atmospheric black carbon in Tibetan glaciers change over time based on GAM models.

Keywords

Tibetan glaciers / bacteria / ice cores / atmospheric black carbon / climate change

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