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Seasonal changes of Antarctic marine bacterioplankton and sea ice bacterial assemblages

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Abstract

The distributions of bacterial populations in sea ice and underlying seawater were investigated on the continental shelf of the “Terre Adélie” area. A reference station was sampled weekly from January 1991 to January 1992. In winter, the survey included a minimum of six sampling layers: surface and bottom ice, brine, seawater from the interface, and at 0.5 and 2 m depth. In seawater, the total bacterial abundance ranged from 0.5 × 105 cells ml−1 in July to 6.0 × 105 cells ml−1 after ice break. Values reaching 2.5 × 106 cells ml−1 were recorded in the overlying ice cover. Mean cell volumes were twice as high in brine as in seawater. The saprophytic bacterial abundance ranged from 5.0 × 104 CFU (colony-forming units) ml−1 in some winter interface samples to less than 1.0 × 103 CFU ml−1 in most of the summer seawater samples. In sea ice a clear decreasing gradient for most of the studied bacterial parameters from the surface layers towards the bottom layer was found. The ice cover had a discernible impact on underlying seawater, but its influence was restricted to a limited interface layer.

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Delille, D., Rosiers, C. Seasonal changes of Antarctic marine bacterioplankton and sea ice bacterial assemblages. Polar Biol 16, 27–34 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02388732

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