Search

The number of icebergs produced from ice-shelf disintegration has increased over the past decade in Antarctica. These drifting icebergs mix the water column, influence stratification and nutrient condition, and can affect local productivity and food web composition. Data on whether icebergs affect bacterioplankton function and composition are scarce, however. We assessed the influence of iceberg drift on bacterial community composition and on their ability to exploit carbon substrates during summer in the coastal Southern Ocean. An elevated bacterial production and a different community composition were observed in iceberg-influenced waters relative to the undisturbed water column nearby. These major differences were confirmed in short-term incubations with bromodeoxyuridine followed by CARD-FISH. Furthermore, one-week bottle incubations amended with inorganic nutrients and carbon substrates (a mix of substrates, glutamine, N-acetylglucosamine, or pyruvate) revealed contrasting capacity of bacterioplankton to utilize specific carbon substrates in the iceberg-influenced waters compared with the undisturbed site. Our study demonstrates that the hydrographical perturbations introduced by a drifting iceberg can affect activity, composition, and substrate utilization capability of marine bacterioplankton. Consequently, in a context of global warming, increased frequency of drifting icebergs in polar regions holds the potential to affect carbon and nutrient biogeochemistry at local and possibly regional scales., (© 2017 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Alginate is a major cell wall polysaccharide from marine macroalgae and nutrient source for heterotrophic bacteria. Alginate can form gel particles in contact with divalent cations as found in seawater. Here, we tested the hypothesis that alginate gel particles serve as carbon source and microhabitat for marine bacteria by adding sterile alginate particles to microcosms with seawater from coastal California, a habitat rich in alginate-containing macroalgae. Alginate particles were rapidly colonized and degraded, with three- to eightfold higher bacterial abundances and production among alginate particle-associated (PA) bacteria. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing showed that alginate PA bacteria were enriched in OTUs related to Cryomorphaceae, Saprospiraceae (Bacteroidetes) and Phaeobacter (Alphaproteobacteria) towards the end of the experiment. In microcosms amended with alginate particles and the proficient alginolytic bacterium Alteromonas macleodii strain 83-1, this strain dominated the community and outcompeted Cryomorphaceae, Saprospiraceae and Phaeobacter, and PA hydrolytic activities were over 50% higher. Thus, alginolytic activity by strain 83-1 did not benefit non-alginolytic strains by cross-feeding on alginate hydrolysis or other metabolic products. Considering the global distribution and extensive biomass of alginate-containing macroalgae, the observed bacterial dynamics associated with the utilization and remineralization of alginate microhabitats promote the understanding of carbon cycling in macroalgae-rich waters worldwide., (© 2016 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Due to climate change, sea ice experiences changes in terms of extent and physical properties. In order to understand how sea ice microbial communities are affected by changes in physicochemical properties of the ice, we used 454-sequencing of 16S and 18S rRNA genes to examine environmental control of microbial diversity and composition in Antarctic sea ice. We observed a high diversity and richness of bacteria, which were strongly negatively correlated with temperature and positively with brine salinity. We suggest that bacterial diversity in sea ice is mainly controlled by physicochemical properties of the ice, such as temperature and salinity, and that sea ice bacterial communities are sensitive to seasonal and environmental changes. For the first time in Antarctic interior sea ice, we observed a strong eukaryotic dominance of the dinoflagellate phylotype SL163A10, comprising 63% of the total sequences. This phylotype is known to be kleptoplastic and could be a significant primary producer in sea ice. We conclude that mixotrophic flagellates may play a greater role in the sea ice microbial ecosystem than previously believed, and not only during the polar night but also during summer when potential food sources are abundant., (© 2015 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Studies indicate that bacterial taxa utilize different fractions of the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) pool, while others suggest functional redundancy among constituents of bacterioplankton, implying only a weak coupling between community structure and function. We examined bacterial compositional and functional [ectoenzymatic activities and growth efficiency; bacterial growth efficiency (BGE)] responses to a gradient in bioavailable DOC (bDOC). This was achieved over 10 days in DOC utilization assays containing Baltic Sea water with variable amounts of natural bDOC. Measurements of bacterial growth, O2 and DOC consumption in the assays using non-invasive sampling showed that BGE changed over time and that the bDOC utilized accounted for 4-13% of the DOC pool. Pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes demonstrated minor differences at the phylum level between samples, whereas larger successional differences were discernible at lower phylogenetic levels. Our study suggests that changes in concentrations of bDOC affect bacterioplankton BGE and community structure by selecting for some taxa while the relative abundance of most taxa remained unaffected. Ectoenzymes activities suggested preferential degradation of protein-rich compounds by bacteria, switching to carbohydrate-rich DOC when proteins were depleted. Hence, there was a fairly weak linkage between bacterial community composition and DOC utilization suggesting that overall bacterioplankton community structure only to some extent has predictive power for processing of the DOC pool., (© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for Applied Microbiology.)