| Summary: | 14th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology (ISME14), 19-24 August 2012 Copenhagen, Denmark Global change is particularly fast in the Arctic, where sea ice has been decreasing at a fast pace for several decades. As a consequence, the Arctic Ocean freezes later and melts earlier than before. This will likely affect the length of the growing season and the timing of the main phytoplankton bloom. However, the consequences for the winter community are unknown. In fact, the functioning of the winter ecosystem remains mostly in the dark. Thanks to a few overwintering cruises in the past few years we begin to realize that the microbial community during the Arctic winter is active. In fact, there are particular archaea and phototrophic flagellates that grow exponentially during the winter. We have determined their growth rates, the grazing by heterotrophic flagellates on them and we have explored their food and energy sources. Another question is whether a warming of the Arctic Ocean will cause extinction of endemic microorganisms. Most of the important Arctic Ocean microbes are different from those in the temperate zones. The bacterial assemblage shares similarities with the Southern Ocean microbiota. However, Arctic and Antarctic bacterial assemblages are clearly different. Thus, warming of the Arctic may endanger a unique microbiota adapted to cold and dark waters Peer Reviewed
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