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Physiological diversity of bacterial communities from different soil locations on Livingston Island, South Shetland archipelago, Antarctica

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Abstract

Terrestrial food webs of Antarctica are simple and dominated by microorganisms. Soil bacteria play an important role in nutrient cycling, yet little is known about their capacity to utilize different carbon sources and to participate in site nutrient turnover. Biolog EcoPlate™ was applied to study the catabolic activity and physiological diversity of bacteria inhabiting the soil of moss, vascular plants, and fell field habitats from Livingston Island, Antarctica. Additionally, the number of oligotrophic and copiotrophic bacteria was counted by the agar plate method. Results indicated a lack of site-specific distribution of bacterial abundance, in contrast to bacterial catabolic activity and community level physiological profiles. Community level physiological profiles revealed a common capacity of soil bacteria to intensively utilize polyols, which are cryoprotectants widely produced by Antarctic organisms, as well as site-specific phenolic compounds (vegetated habitats), amino acids/amines (moss habitats), carbohydrates and carboxylic acids (fell field habitat). It was concluded that the physiology of soil bacteria is habitat specific concerning both the rate of catabolic activity and pattern of carbon source utilization.

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Abbreviations

AWCD:

Average well color development

AWCDN:

Normalized average well color development

CLPP:

Community level physiological profile

CV:

Coefficient of variability

FTC:

Freeze–thaw cycle

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Valentin Andreev, member of the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute, for soil samples’ collection. This study was supported by the National Scientific Foundation of Bulgaria, Project D RNF 02.2.2009.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biological Faculty, Sofia University, 8 Dragan Tsankov Blvd., 1164, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Anelia Kenarova, Marta Encheva, Valentina Chipeva, Petya Hristova & Penka Moncheva

  2. Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, 2 Yuri Gagarin Str., 1113, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Nesho Chipev

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  1. Anelia Kenarova
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  2. Marta Encheva
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Correspondence to Anelia Kenarova.

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Kenarova, A., Encheva, M., Chipeva, V. et al. Physiological diversity of bacterial communities from different soil locations on Livingston Island, South Shetland archipelago, Antarctica. Polar Biol 36, 223–233 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-012-1254-8

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