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Diversity of bacteria in surface ice of Austre Lovénbreen glacier, Svalbard

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Abstract

Two 16S rRNA gene clone libraries Cores 1U and 2U were constructed using two ice core samples collected from Austre Lovénbreen glacier in Svalbard. The two libraries yielded a total of 262 clones belonging to 59 phylotypes. Sequences fell into 10 major lineages of the domain Bacteria, including Proteobacteria (alpha, beta, gamma and delta subdivisions), Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Acidobacteria, Deinococcus-Thermus, Chloroflexi, Planctomycetes, Cyanobacteria and candidate division TM7. Among them, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria and Cyanobacteria were most abundant. UniFrac data showed no significant differences in community composition between the two ice cores. A total of nineteen bacterial strains from the genera Pseudoalteromonas and Psychrobacter were isolated from the ice cores. Phylogenetic and phenotypic analyses revealed a close relationship between the ice core isolates and bacteria in marine environments, indicating a wide distribution of some bacterial phylotypes in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 40876097, 40876098, 41076130 and 41076131), the Public Science and Technology Research Funds Projects of Ocean (Grant No. 201105022), Chinese Polar Environment Comprehensive Investigation and Assessment Program (grant no. CHINARE2012-02-01) and the Youth Marine Science Foundation of State Oceanic Administration (Grant No. 2011104). We thank Chun-Lei An and Lei-Bao Liu for providing the ice core samples. We also are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for suggestive comments and modification.

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  1. Key Laboratory for Polar Science of State Oceanic Administration, Polar Research Institute of China, Shanghai, 200136, China

    Yin-Xin Zeng, Ming Yan, Yong Yu, Hui-Rong Li, Jian-Feng He, Kun Sun & Fang Zhang

  2. College of Biological Engineering, Jimei University, Xiamen, 361021, China

    Yin-Xin Zeng

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  2. Ming Yan
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Correspondence to Yin-Xin Zeng.

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Communicated by Jörg Overmann.

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Zeng, YX., Yan, M., Yu, Y. et al. Diversity of bacteria in surface ice of Austre Lovénbreen glacier, Svalbard. Arch Microbiol 195, 313–322 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-013-0880-z

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