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Influence of Deglaciation on Microbial Communities in Marine Sediments Off the Coast of Svalbard, Arctic Circle

  • Environmental Microbiology
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An Erratum to this article was published on 17 June 2011

Abstract

Increases in global temperatures have been shown to enhance glacier melting in the Arctic region. Here, we have evaluated the effects of meltwater runoff on the microbial communities of coastal marine sediment located along a transect of Temelfjorden, in Svalbard. As close to the glacier front, the sediment properties were clearly influenced by deglaciation. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis profiles showed that the sediment microbial communities of the stations of glacier front (stations 188–178) were distinguishable from that of outer fjord region (station 176). Canonical correspondence analysis indicated that total carbon and calcium carbonate in sediment and chlorophyll a in bottom water were key factors driving the change of microbial communities. Analysis of 16S rRNA gene clone libraries suggested that microbial diversity was higher within the glacier–proximal zone (station 188) directly affected by the runoffs than in the outer fjord region. While the crenarchaeotal group I.1a dominated at station 176 (62%), Marine Benthic Group-B and other Crenarchaeota groups were proportionally abundant. With regard to the bacterial community, alpha-Proteobacteria and Flavobacteria lineages prevailed (60%) at station 188, whereas delta-Proteobacteria (largely sulfate-reducers) predominated (32%) at station 176. Considering no clone sequences related to sulfate-reducers, station 188 may be more oxic compared to station 176. The distance-wise compositional variation in the microbial communities is attributable to their adaptations to the sediment environments which are differentially affected by melting glaciers.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Ministry of Science and Technology grant (R01-2007-000-20806-0), Basic Science Research Program (2009–0087901), and Mid-career Research Program (2010–0014384) through the National Research Foundation of MEST (Ministry of Education, Science and Technology), South Korea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, 361-763, Chungbuk, Republic of Korea

    Soo-Je Park, Byoung-Joon Park, Man-Young Jung, So-Jeong Kim & Sung-Keun Rhee

  2. Division of Biotechnology, Chonbuk National University, Iksan, 570-752, Republic of Korea

    Jong-Chan Chae

  3. Faculty of Earth System and Environmental Science, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, 500-757, Republic of Korea

    Yul Roh

  4. Department of Geology, University of Tromsø, 9037, Tromsø, Norway

    Matthias Forwick

  5. Korea Polar Research Institute, Songdo Techno Park, 7-50, Inchon, P.O. Box 32, 406-840, Republic of Korea

    Ho-Il Yoon

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  1. Soo-Je Park
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Correspondence to Sung-Keun Rhee.

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Soo-Je Park and Byoung-Joon Park contributed equally to this work.

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00248-011-9888-6

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Park, SJ., Park, BJ., Jung, MY. et al. Influence of Deglaciation on Microbial Communities in Marine Sediments Off the Coast of Svalbard, Arctic Circle. Microb Ecol 62, 537–548 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-011-9860-5

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