Variation of culturable bacteria along depth in the East Rongbuk ice core,Mt.Everest

Ice melt water from a 22.27 m ice core which was drilled from the East Rongbuk Glacier, Mt. Everest was incubation in two incubation ways： plate melt water directly and enrichment melt water prior plate, respectively. The abundance of cultivable bacteria ranged from 0-295 CFU mL-I to 0--1720 CFU mL-1 in two incubations with a total of 1385 isolates obtained. Comparing to direct cultivation, enrichment cultivation recovered more bacteria. Pigment-producing bacteria accounted for an average of 84.9% of total isolates. Such high percentage suggested that pigment production may be an adaptive physiological feature for the bacteria in ice core to cope with strong ultraviolet radiation on the glacier. The abundances of cultivable bacteria and pigment-producing isolates varied synchronously along depth： higher abundance in the middle and lower at the top and bottom. It indicated that the middle part of the ice core was hospitable for the microbial survival. Based on the physiological properties of the colonies, eighty-nine isolates were selected for phylogenetic analysis. Obtained 16S rRNA gene sequences fell into four groups： Firmicutes, Alpha-Proteobacteria, Gamma-Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria, with the Firmicutes being dominant. Microbial compositions derived from direct and enrichment cultivations were not overlapped. We suggest that it is a better way to explorethe culturable microbial diversity in ice core by combining the approaches of both direct and enrichment cultivation.

Pathogenetic and physiological mechanisms of poplar ice nucleation active bacterial canker

Using the methods introduced by Bier, X.H., Buchinock, Wang Jing-wen, Shi Rihe et al., different varieties of poplar (poplar-Mei譗ing, Poplar-A100, Poplar-Xiaohe14 et al.) were inoculated with poplar ice nucleation active (INA) bacteria respec-tively in 1997-1999. The water content, relative turgidity, lignin content, phenylalanine ammonialyase (PAL) activity, electrolyte effusion rate, and inorganic element content of poplar bark were measured before and after inoculating. The results showed that after the poplar trees were inoculated with INA bacteria, the moisture content of bark decreased but relative turgidity increased, electrolyte effusion rate increased and had a peak at temperatures of 4 and 5 C, lignin content increased and positively cor-related with poplars disease-resistance, and the plenylalanine ammonialyase activity increased and also showed a significant positive correlation with poplars disease-resistance. For the contents of inorganic element, Cu and Fe decreased but K and Zn increased obviously, while Mn, Ca and Mg changed little.

Molecular genetic diversity of bacteria in the bottom section of arctic sea ice from the Canada Basin

PCR-DGGE approach was used to analyze bacterial diversity in the bottomsection of seven arctic sea ice samples colleted from the Canada Basin.Thirty-two 16S rDNAsequences were obtained from prominent DGGE bands.The closest relatives of these sequences arefound to be those of cultivated or uncultured bacteria from antarctic or arctic sea ice.Phylogenetic analysis clustered these sequences or phylotypes withinα-proteobacteria,γ-proteobacteria and CFB(cytophaga-flexibacter-bacteroides)group.Sequences belonging toγ-proteobacteria were dominant and members of the CFB group were highly abundant.It was suggestedthat the CFB group was the representative of the bottom section of sea ice samples.

Isolation of novel psychrophilic bacteria from Arctic sea ice

The phylogenetic diversity of cuhurable psychrophilic bacteria associated with sea ice from the high latitude regions of Canadian Basin and Chukchi Sea, Arctic, was investigated. A total of 34 psychropilic strains were isolated using three methods of （ Ⅰ ） dilution plating （ at 4 ℃ ）, （ Ⅱ ） bath culturing （ at - 1 ℃ ） and dilution plating, and （ Ⅲ） cold shock （ -20 ℃ for 24 h）, bath culturing and dilution plating under aerobic conditions. Sea-ice samples were exposed to -20 ℃ for 24 h that might reduce the number of common microorganisms and encourage outgrowth of psyehrophilic strains. This process might be able to be introduced to isolation psychrophilic bacteria from other environmental samples in future study. 16S rDNA nearly full-length sequence analysis revealed that psychrophilic strains felled in two phylo- genetic divisions, γ-proteobacteria （in the genera ColweUia,Marinobaeter、Shewanella,Glaciecola,Marinomortas and Pseudoalteromortas ） and Cytophaga-Flexibacter-Baeteroides （ Flavobacterlum and Psyehroflexus）. Fifteen of bacterial isolates quite likely represented novel species （16S rDNA sequence similarity below 98% ）. One of strains （BSi20002） from Canadian Basin showed 100% sequence similarity to that of Marinobacter sp. ANT8277 isolated from the Antarctic Weddell sea ice, suggesting bacteria may have a bipolar distribution at the species level.

Phylogenetic analysis of bacteria in sea ice brine sampled from the Canada Basin,Arctic Ocean

Bacterial diversity in sea ice brine samples which collected from four stations located at the Canada Basin, Arctic Ocean was analyzed by PCR-DGGE. Twenty-three 16S rDNA sequences of bacteria obtained from DGGE bands were cloned and sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis clustered these sequences within γ-proteobacteria, Cytophaga-Flexlbacter-Bacteroides （CFB） group, Firmicutes and Actinobacteria. The phylotype of Pseudoalteromonas in the γ-proteobacteria was predominant and members of the CFB group and γ-proteobacteria were highly abundant in studied sea ice brine samples.

Human activity over natural inputs determines the bacterial community in an ice core from the Muztag ata glacier

Ice core provides a valuable vertical timeline of past climates and anthropogenic activities.Environmental proxies have been widely used in these studies,but there are few biological indicators available.To address this gap,we investigated the bacterial community from a 74 m ice core of Muztag ata glacier on the Tibetan Plateau to link biological indicators with past climate and anthropogenic activities.By analyzing the portion of the ice core with environmental proxies available(corresponding to 1907 to 1991),we observed an increase in bacterial richness throughout the ice core,which was associated with higher NH_(4)^(+),an indicator of agricultural development.The bacterial community was jointly determined by human activity,natural input,and air temperature,with a strong human influence after the 1950s.Furthermore,the relative abundance of animal gut-associated bacteria,including Aerococcaceae,Nocardiaceae,Muribaculaceae,and Lachnospiraceae,was associated with livestock number changes in the Central Asian region.Together with other bacterial lineages,they jointly explained 59.8%of the livestock number changes.This study provides quantitative evidence of the associations between bacterial indicators and past climate and human activities,highlighting the potential of using bacterial proxies for ice core studies.

Vertical quantitative and dominant population distribution of the bacteria isolated from the Muztagata ice core

Vertical distribution of the main bacteria isolated from the Muztagata ice core (about 22.4 m) was investigated by means of cultivation and 16S rRNA sequence analysis. The results showed that the amount of culturable bacteria fluctuated with ice core depth, and was more in dirty layer than in clean ice, which suggested the close corresponding relationship between high input of the bacteria deposited by wind and snowflow and dirty layer. Most of the bacteria were psychrophiles and psychrotolerants, including α- and γ-proteobacteria, Cryobacterium psychro-philum, CFB (Cytophaga-Flavobacterium-Bacteroides) group, high-G+C gram-positive bacteria (HGC). Acinetobacter sp. and HGC repeatly occurred in different ice depths, and their quantita-tive distribution was consistent with the change of the total amount of culturable bacteria with depth, which suggested the main bio-indicator; while Flavobacterium, Cryobacterium psychro-philum, and α-proteobacteria, also functioned as a secondary indicator of climatic and environ-mental changes. This study is the first report concerning continuous quantitative variation and pattern of the main culturable bacteria in ice core section.

Minireview: The role of viruses in marine photosynthetic biofilms

Microphytobenthos and sea ice algae comprise globally significant photosynthetic biofilms.While their microalgal and bacterial constituents are well characterized,there is very little information on their viral communities or on the virus-bacteria and virus-algae interactions within them.While high levels of interaction might be expected because of the high density of cells,infection rates,particularly of microalgae,have been found to be low.It remains unclear whether this is a result of environment characteristics,developed resistance or because of the small number of studies.