Non-Fungi Diversity Present in Soil and Snow Impacted by Anthropogenic Activity in King George Island, Maritime Antarctica Using Metabarcoding Approach.

The Antarctic Peninsula shows a fast-rising temperature trend, increasing the risk of colonization by non-native species, such as the invasive Poa annua. The "cryptic diversity" of largely unknown microscopic propagules in soil and snow poses a significant threat, as traditional morphological surveys are inadequate. Therefore, DNA metabarcoding of environmental DNA was applied to achieve a broader and more accurate assessment. We investigated non-fungi eDNA diversity in soil (three sites) and freshly deposited snow (five sites) from Martel Inlet, King George Island, with sites categorized by proximity to human activity. DNA was extracted, and the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) was used as the DNA barcode. Sequencing was performed using an Illumina MiSeq V3. Sequences were classified into 72 ASVs, representing four kingdoms and 10 phyla, with 18% not previously recorded in Antarctica. Soils hosted richer communities (mean of 30 ASVs per sample) than snow (mean of 16.2 ASVs per sample); however, there was no statistically significant difference in abundance nor diversity between the sample types. The data did not reveal differences between the sampled areas or suggest anthropogenic influence on any of the sampled communities. This work underscores the value of eDNA metabarcoding in assessing cryptic biodiversity.