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Survey of Bacterial Phylogenetic Diversity During the Glacier Melting Season in an Arctic Fjord

  • Microbiology of Aquatic Systems
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Abstract

To understand bacterial biogeography in response to the hydrographic impact of climate change derived from the Arctic glacier melting, we surveyed bacterial diversity and community composition using bacterial 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding in the seawaters of Kongsfjorden, Svalbard, during summer 2016. In the present study, bacterial biogeography in the Kongsfjorden seawaters showed distinct habitat patterns according to water mass classification and habitat transition between Atlantic and fjord surface waters. Moreover, we estimated phylogenetic diversity of bacterial communities using the net relatedness, nearest taxon, and beta nearest taxon indices. We found the influence of freshwater input from glacier melting in shaping bacterial assemblage composition through the stochastic model. We further evaluated bacterial contributions to phytoplankton-derived dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) using a quantitative PCR (qPCR) measurement with demethylation (dmdA) and cleavage (dddP) genes of two fundamentally different processes. Our qPCR results imply that bacterial DMSP degradation follows the Atlantic inflow during summer in Kongsfjorden. These findings suggest that the Atlantic inflow and glacial melting influence bacterial community composition and assembly processes and thus affect the degradation of phytoplankton-derived organic matter in an Arctic fjord.

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Funding

This study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSICT) (NRF-2015M1A5A1037243, PN20090), by the Basic Science Research Program through the NRF funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2018R1D1A3B07041743, NRF-2019R1I1A1A01058140), and by the Basic Science Research Program to the Research Institute for Basic Sciences (RIBS) of Jeju National University through the NRF funded by the Ministry of Education (2019R1A6A1A10072987).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jeju National University, Jeju, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, 63243, Republic of Korea

    Dukki Han & Tatsuya Unno

  2. Microbial Ecophysiology Group, Faculty of Biology/Chemistry, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Dukki Han & Tim Richter-Heitmann

  3. Department of Marine Science, Incheon National University, Incheon, 22012, Republic of Korea

    Il-Nam Kim

  4. Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon, 21990, Republic of Korea

    Eunjung Choy, Ki-Tae Park & Seung-Il Nam

  5. Research Institute for Basic Sciences, Jeju National University, Jeju, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, 63243, Republic of Korea

    Jungman Kim

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  1. Dukki Han
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Correspondence to Dukki Han or Seung-Il Nam.

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Han, D., Richter-Heitmann, T., Kim, IN. et al. Survey of Bacterial Phylogenetic Diversity During the Glacier Melting Season in an Arctic Fjord. Microb Ecol 81, 579–591 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-020-01616-4

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