Taxonomically and Functionally Distinct Ciliophora Assemblages Inhabiting Baltic Sea Ice.

Ciliophora is a phylum of unicellular eukaryotes that are common and have pivotal roles in aquatic environments. Sea ice is a marine habitat, which is composed of a matrix of solid ice and pockets of saline water in which Ciliophora thrive. Here, we used phylogenetic placement to identify Ciliophora 18S ribosomal RNA reads obtained from wintertime water and sea ice, and assigned functions to the reads based on this taxonomic information. Based on our results, sea-ice Ciliophora assemblages are poorer in taxonomic and functional richness than under-ice water and water-column assemblages. Ciliophora diversity stayed stable throughout the ice-covered season both in sea ice and in water, although the assemblages changed during the course of our sampling. Under-ice water and the water column were distinctly predominated by planktonic orders Choreotrichida and Oligotrichida, which led to significantly lower taxonomic and functional evenness in water than in sea ice. In addition to planktonic Ciliophora, assemblages in sea ice included a set of moderately abundant surface-oriented species. Omnivory (feeding on bacteria and unicellular eukaryotes) was the most common feeding type but was not as predominant in sea ice as in water. Sea ice included cytotrophic (feeding on unicellular eukaryotes), bacterivorous and parasitic Ciliophora in addition to the predominant omnivorous Ciliophora. Potentially mixotrophic Ciliophora predominated the water column and heterotrophic Ciliophora sea ice. Our results highlight sea ice as an environment that creates a set of variable habitats, which may be threatened by the diminishing extent of sea ice due to changing climate.

Diversity and Composition of Pelagic Prokaryotic and Protist Communities in a Thin Arctic Sea-Ice Regime.

One of the most prominent manifestations of climate change is the changing Arctic sea-ice regime with a reduction in the summer sea-ice extent and a shift from thicker, perennial multiyear ice towards thinner, first-year ice. These changes in the physical environment are likely to impact microbial communities, a key component of Arctic marine food webs and biogeochemical cycles. During the Norwegian young sea ICE expedition (N-ICE2015) north of Svalbard, seawater samples were collected at the surface (5 m), subsurface (20 or 50 m), and mesopelagic (250 m) depths on 9 March, 27 April, and 16 June 2015. In addition, several physical and biogeochemical data were recorded to contextualize the collected microbial communities. Through the massively parallel sequencing of the small subunit ribosomal RNA amplicon and metagenomic data, this work allows studying the Arctic's microbial community structure during the late winter to early summer transition. Results showed that, at compositional level, Alpha- (30.7%) and Gammaproteobacteria (28.6%) are the most frequent taxa across the prokaryotic N-ICE2015 collection, and also the most phylogenetically diverse. Winter to early summer trends were quite evident since there was a high relative abundance of thaumarchaeotes in the under-ice water column in late winter while this group was nearly absent during early summer. Moreover, the emergence of Flavobacteria and the SAR92 clade in early summer might be associated with the degradation of a spring bloom of Phaeocystis. High relative abundance of hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria, particularly Alcanivorax (54.3%) and Marinobacter (6.3%), was also found. Richness showed different patterns along the depth gradient for prokaryotic (highest at mesopelagic depth) and protistan communities (higher at subsurface depths). The microbial N-ICE2015 collection analyzed in the present study provides comprehensive new knowledge about the pelagic microbiota below drifting Arctic sea-ice. The higher microbial diversity found in late winter/early spring communities reinforces the need to continue with further studies to properly characterize the winter microbial communities under the pack-ice.

A globally distributed Syndiniales parasite dominates the Southern Ocean micro-eukaryote community near the sea-ice edge.

Syndiniales (Dinophyceae, Alveolata) are a diverse parasitic group common in all marine environments, but their ecological role remains poorly understood. Here we show an unprecedented dominance of a single Syndiniales group I operational taxonomic unit (OTU) across 3000 km of Southern Ocean transects near the sea-ice edge. This super-abundant OTU consistently represented >20%, and in some locations >50%, of eukaryote 18S rDNA sequences. Identical 18S V4 sequences have been isolated from seven Northern Hemisphere locations, and the OTU's putative V9 rDNA sequence was detected at every station of the global Tara Oceans voyage. Although Syndiniales taxa display some host specificity, our identification of candidate Southern Ocean hosts suggests this OTU associates with distinct phyla in different parts of the world. Our results indicate Syndiniales are key players in surface waters near the vast and dynamic sea-ice edge in the world's most biologically productive ocean.

Metagenomic analyses highlight the symbiotic association between the glacier stonefly Andiperla willinki and its bacterial gut community.

The glacier stonefly Andiperla willinki is the largest metazoan inhabiting the Patagonian glaciers. In this study, we analysed the gut microbiome of the aquatic nymphs by 16S rRNA gene amplicon and metagenomic sequencing. The bacterial gut community was consistently dominated by taxa typical of animal digestive tracts, such as Dysgonomonadaceae and Lachnospiraceae, as well as those generally indigenous to glacier environments, such as Polaromonas. Interestingly, the dominant Polaromonas phylotypes detected in the stonefly gut were almost never detected in the glacier surface habitat. Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis revealed that the bacterial lineages typical of animal guts colonized the gut wall in a co-aggregated form, while Polaromonas cells were not included in the aggregates. Draft genomes of several dominant bacterial lineages were reconstructed from metagenomic datasets and indicated that the predominant Dysgonomonadaceae bacterium is capable of degrading various polysaccharides derived from host-ingested food, such as algae, and that other dominant bacterial lineages ferment saccharides liberated by the polysaccharide degradation. Our results suggest that the gut bacteria-host association in the glacier stonefly contributes to host nutrition as well as material cycles in the glacier environment.

Diversity patterns of microbial eukaryotes mirror those of bacteria in Antarctic cryoconite holes.

Ice-lidded cryoconite holes on glaciers in the Taylor Valley, Antarctica, provide a unique system of natural mesocosms for studying community structure and assembly. We used high-throughput DNA sequencing to characterize both microbial eukaryotic communities and bacterial communities within cryoconite holes across three glaciers to study similarities in their spatial patterns. We expected that the alpha (phylogenetic diversity) and beta (pairwise community dissimilarity) diversity patterns of eukaryotes in cryoconite holes would be related to those of bacteria, and that they would be related to the biogeochemical gradient within the Taylor Valley. We found that eukaryotic alpha and beta diversity were strongly related to those of bacteria across scales ranging from 140 m to 41 km apart. Alpha diversity of both was significantly related to position in the valley and surface area of the cryoconite hole, with pH also significantly correlated with the eukaryotic diversity. Beta diversity for both bacteria and eukaryotes was significantly related to position in the valley, with bacterial beta diversity also related to nitrate. These results are consistent with transport of sediments onto glaciers occurring primarily at local scales relative to the size of the valley, thus creating feedbacks in local chemistry and diversity.

Photosynthetic Picoeukaryotes in the Land-Fast Ice of the White Sea, Russia.

The White Sea is a unique marine environment combining features of temperate and Arctic seas. The composition and abundance of photosynthetic picoeukaryotes (PPEs) were investigated in the land-fast ice of the White Sea, Russia, in March 2013 and 2014. High-throughput tag sequencing (Illumina MiSeq system) of the V4 region of the 18S rRNA gene was used to reveal the diversity of PPE ice community. The integrated PPE abundance varied from 11 × 106 cells/m2 to 364 × 106 cells/m2; the integrated biomass ranged from 0.02 to 0.26 mg С/m2. The composition of sea-ice PPEs was represented by 16 algae genera belonging to eight classes and three super-groups. Chlorophyta, especially Mamiellophyceae, dominated among ice PPEs. The detailed analysis revealed the latent diversity of Micromonas and Mantоniella. Micromonas clade E2 revealed in the subarctic White Sea ice indicates that the area of distribution of this species is wider than previously thought. We suppose there exists a new Micromonas clade F. Micromonas clade C and Minutocellulus polymorphus were first discovered in the ice and extend the modern concept of sympagic communities' diversity generally and highlights the importance of further targeting subarctic sea ice for microbial study.

Initiation and long-term instability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Antarctica's continental-scale ice sheets have evolved over the past 50 million years. However, the dearth of ice-proximal geological records limits our understanding of past East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) behaviour and thus our ability to evaluate its response to ongoing environmental change. The EAIS is marine-terminating and grounded below sea level within the Aurora subglacial basin, indicating that this catchment, which drains ice to the Sabrina Coast, may be sensitive to climate perturbations. Here we show, using marine geological and geophysical data from the continental shelf seaward of the Aurora subglacial basin, that marine-terminating glaciers existed at the Sabrina Coast by the early to middle Eocene epoch. This finding implies the existence of substantial ice volume in the Aurora subglacial basin before continental-scale ice sheets were established about 34 million years ago. Subsequently, ice advanced across and retreated from the Sabrina Coast continental shelf at least 11 times during the Oligocene and Miocene epochs. Tunnel valleys associated with half of these glaciations indicate that a surface-meltwater-rich sub-polar glacial system existed under climate conditions similar to those anticipated with continued anthropogenic warming. Cooling since the late Miocene resulted in an expanded polar EAIS and a limited glacial response to Pliocene warmth in the Aurora subglacial basin catchment. Geological records from the Sabrina Coast shelf indicate that, in addition to ocean temperature, atmospheric temperature and surface-derived meltwater influenced East Antarctic ice mass balance under warmer-than-present climate conditions. Our results imply a dynamic EAIS response with continued anthropogenic warming and suggest that the EAIS contribution to future global sea-level projections may be under-estimated.

Spatial autocorrelation of microbial communities atop a debris-covered glacier is evidence of a supraglacial chronosequence.

Although microbial communities from many glacial environments have been analyzed, microbes living in the debris atop debris-covered glaciers represent an understudied frontier in the cryosphere. The few previous molecular studies of microbes in supraglacial debris have either had limited phylogenetic resolution, limited spatial resolution (e.g. only one sample site on the glacier) or both. Here, we present the microbiome of a debris-covered glacier across all three domains of life, using a spatially-explicit sampling scheme to characterize the Middle Fork Toklat Glacier's microbiome from its terminus to sites high on the glacier. Our results show that microbial communities differ across the supraglacial transect, but surprisingly these communities are strongly spatially autocorrelated, suggesting the presence of a supraglacial chronosequence. This pattern is dominated by phototrophic microbes (both bacteria and eukaryotes) which are less abundant near the terminus and more abundant higher on the glacier. We use these data to refute the hypothesis that the inhabitants of the glacier are randomly deposited atmospheric microbes, and to provide evidence that succession from a predominantly photosynthetic to a more heterotrophic community is occurring on the glacier.

Sea-ice eukaryotes of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, and evidence for herbivory on weakly shade-adapted ice algae.

To determine community composition and physiological status of early spring sea-ice organisms, we collected sea-ice, slush and under-ice water samples from the Baltic Sea. We combined light microscopy, HPLC pigment analysis and pyrosequencing, and related the biomass and physiological status of sea-ice algae with the protistan community composition in a new way in the area. In terms of biomass, centric diatoms including a distinct Melosira arctica bloom in the upper intermediate section of the fast ice, dinoflagellates, euglenoids and the cyanobacterium Aphanizomenon sp. predominated in the sea-ice sections and unidentified flagellates in the slush. Based on pigment analyses, the ice-algal communities showed no adjusted photosynthetic pigment pools throughout the sea ice, and the bottom-ice communities were not shade-adapted. The sea ice included more characteristic phototrophic taxa (49%) than did slush (18%) and under-ice water (37%). Cercozoans and ciliates were the richest taxon groups, and the differences among the communities arose mainly from the various phagotrophic protistan taxa inhabiting the communities. The presence of pheophytin a coincided with an elevated ciliate biomass and read abundance in the drift ice and with a high Eurytemora affinis read abundance in the pack ice, indicating that ciliates and Eurytemora affinis were grazing on algae.

Mesoscale distribution and functional diversity of picoeukaryotes in the first-year sea ice of the Canadian Arctic.

Sea ice, a characteristic feature of polar waters, is home to diverse microbial communities. Sea-ice picoeukaryotes (unicellular eukaryotes with cell size <3 µm) have received little attention compared with diatoms that dominate the spring bloom in Arctic first-year sea ice. Here, we investigated the abundance of all picoeukaryotes, and of 11 groups (chlorophytes, cryptophytes, bolidophytes, haptophytes, Pavlovaphyceae, Phaeocystis spp., pedinellales, stramenopiles groups MAST-1, MAST-2 and MAST-6 and Syndiniales Group II) at 13 first-year sea-ice stations localized in Barrow Strait and in the vicinity of Cornwallis Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago. We applied Catalyzed Reporter Deposition-Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization to identify selected groups at a single cell level. Pavlovaphyceae and stramenopiles from groups MAST-2 and MAST-6 were for the first time reported from sea ice. Total numbers of picoeukaryotes were significantly higher in the vicinity of Cornwallis Island than in Barrow Strait. Similar trend was observed for all the groups except for haptophytes. Chlorophytes and cryptophytes were the dominant plastidic, and MAST-2 most numerous aplastidic of all the groups investigated. Numbers of total picoeukaryotes, chlorophytes and MAST-2 stramenopiles were positively correlated with the thickness of snow cover. All studied algal and MAST groups fed on bacteria. Presence of picoeukaryotes from various trophic groups (mixotrophs, phagotrophic and parasitic heterotrophs) indicates the diverse ecological roles picoeukaryotes have in sea ice. Yet, >50% of total sea-ice picoeukaryote cells remained unidentified, highlighting the need for further study of functional and phylogenetic sea-ice diversity, to elucidate the risks posed by ongoing Arctic changes.

New subgroup of Bacteroidetes and diverse microorganisms in Tibetan plateau glacial ice provide a biological record of environmental conditions.

We recovered microorganisms from five ice core samples from three glaciers (Puruogangri, Malan, and Dunde) located in the Tibetan Plateau in China and analyzed their small subunit rRNA gene sequences. Most of the bacterial sequences were unknown previously; the most closely related known sequences were from bacteria of the Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria phyla. Chlorophyta, Streptophyta, Ciliophora, and fungal groups were represented among the 18S rRNA gene sequences that we obtained. The most abundantly represented glacial bacteria were Bacteroidetes, and Chlamydomonas was the predominant eukaryote. Comparative analysis showed that the Bacteroidetes sequences obtained from this study were highly similar to one another but most were only distantly related to previously characterized Bacteroidetes (<92% identity). We propose that our Bacteroidetes sequences represent two novel subgroups: one at the family level and one at the genus level. The unique ice environment and the high abundance of Bacteroidetes, combined with the coexistence of a high abundance of psychrophilic Chlamydomonas, strongly suggests that there is a viable ecosystem on the surface of Tibetan glaciers. Comparisons of microbial community structures in the five ice samples showed distinct differences, likely due to environmental differences in the locations in which the samples were obtained.

The evolution of fish ectoparasite communities--the role of the ice ages.

The monogenean ectoparasite genera Dactylogyrus and Gyrodactylus are hyperdiverse, and yet monogenean communities infecting freshwater fish in the northern Holarctic are variable and often impoverished. This is a result of extinctions during periods of glaciation when the host fishes experienced range contraction. Fish species recolonised northern Europe by one of three routes; stenohaline fishes recolonised from the Black Sea basin via Danube-Rhine or Dnieper-Dniester-Vistula connections. These fish retain complex rich monogenean faunas with numerous species of Dactylogyrus and Paradiplozoon. Anadromous fishes, recolonising via marine migrations along the coast, and cold-water fishes surviving in refugia close to the ice sheets, have impoverished monogenean faunas, characterised by gyrodactylid and ancyrocephalid species. However, there may be great complexity, due to the evolution of new host-parasite interactions within specific watersheds before, during and after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This is demonstrated using examples from the sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and the bullheads (Cottus gobio). Finally, the evolution of Gyrodactylus salaris from a clade of G. thymalli is described, and the role of glaciation in stimulating the evolution of numerous clades of the latter is discussed. This latter example represents a unique opportunity to study speciation by host shift in real time.