Physicochemical control of bacterial and protist community composition and diversity in Antarctic sea ice

Summary Due to climate change, sea ice experiences changes in terms of extent and physical properties. In order to understand how sea ice microbial communities are affected by changes in physicochemical properties of the ice, we used 454‐sequencing of 16 S and 18 S rRNA genes to examine environmenta...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental Microbiology
Main Authors: Torstensson, Anders, Dinasquet, Julie, Chierici, Melissa, Fransson, Agneta, Riemann, Lasse, Wulff, Angela
Other Authors: Swedish Research Council, Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, FORMAS, Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg (KVVS), The Danish Council for Independent Research, Natural Sciences
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2015
Subjects:
Antarctic
Antarc*
polar night
Sea ice
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.12865
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2F1462-2920.12865
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/1462-2920.12865/fullpdf
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Summary:Summary Due to climate change, sea ice experiences changes in terms of extent and physical properties. In order to understand how sea ice microbial communities are affected by changes in physicochemical properties of the ice, we used 454‐sequencing of 16 S and 18 S rRNA genes to examine environmental control of microbial diversity and composition in A ntarctic sea ice. We observed a high diversity and richness of bacteria, which were strongly negatively correlated with temperature and positively with brine salinity. We suggest that bacterial diversity in sea ice is mainly controlled by physicochemical properties of the ice, such as temperature and salinity, and that sea ice bacterial communities are sensitive to seasonal and environmental changes. For the first time in Antarctic interior sea ice, we observed a strong eukaryotic dominance of the dinoflagellate phylotype SL 163 A 10, comprising 63% of the total sequences. This phylotype is known to be kleptoplastic and could be a significant primary producer in sea ice. We conclude that mixotrophic flagellates may play a greater role in the sea ice microbial ecosystem than previously believed, and not only during the polar night but also during summer when potential food sources are abundant.

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