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Penicillium Mycobiota in Arctic Subglacial Ice

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Abstract

Fungi have been only rarely isolated from glacial ice in extremely cold polar regions and were in these cases considered as random, long-term preserved Aeolian deposits. Fungal presence has so far not been investigated in polar subglacial ice, a recently discovered extreme habitat reported to be inhabited exclusively by heterotrophic bacteria. In this study we report on the very high occurrence (up to 9000 CFU L−1) and diversity of filamentous Penicillium spp. in the sediment-rich subglacial ice of three different polythermal Arctic glaciers (Svalbard, Norway). The dominant species was P. crustosum, representing on the average half of all isolated strains from all three glaciers. The other most frequently isolated species were P. bialowiezense, P. chrysogenum, P. thomii, P. solitum, P. palitans, P. echinulatum, P. polonicum, P. commune, P. discolor, P. expansum, and new Penicillium species (sp. 1). Twelve more Penicillium species were occasionally isolated. The fungi isolated produced consistent profiles of secondary metabolites, not different from the same Penicillium species from other habitats. This is the first report on the presence of large populations of Penicillium spp. in subglacial sediment-rich ice.

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Acknowledgments

The work in Ny-Ålesund was funded by EU Large-Scale Facility Fund. Laboratory experiments were partially supported by a FEMS Fellowship and partly by EU under the Major Research Infrastructure (MRI) Centre for Advanced Food Studies (LMC). We also thank the Danish Technical Research Council for support of the Program for Predictive Biotechnology and Center for Microbial Biotechnology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Večna pot 111, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Silva Sonjak & Nina Gunde-Cimerman

  2. Center for Microbial Biotechnology, Biocentrum-DTU, Building 221, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Kgs., Lyngby, Denmark

    Jens C. Frisvad

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  1. Silva Sonjak
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  2. Jens C. Frisvad
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Correspondence to Silva Sonjak.

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Sonjak, S., Frisvad, J.C. & Gunde-Cimerman, N. Penicillium Mycobiota in Arctic Subglacial Ice. Microb Ecol 52, 207–216 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-006-9086-0

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