AUTHOR=Rapp Josephine Z. , Fernández-Méndez Mar , Bienhold Christina , Boetius Antje TITLE=Effects of Ice-Algal Aggregate Export on the Connectivity of Bacterial Communities in the Central Arctic Ocean JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology VOLUME=9 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01035 DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2018.01035 ISSN=1664-302X ABSTRACT=
In summer 2012, Arctic sea ice declined to a record minimum and, as a consequence of the melting, large amounts of aggregated ice-algae sank to the seafloor at more than 4,000 m depth. In this study, we assessed the composition, turnover and connectivity of bacterial and microbial eukaryotic communities across Arctic habitats from sea ice, algal aggregates and surface waters to the seafloor. Eukaryotic communities were dominated by diatoms, dinoflagellates and other alveolates in all samples, and showed highest richness and diversity in sea-ice habitats (∼400–500 OTUs).