Glaciers accumulate airborne microorganisms year by year and thus are good archives of microbial communities and their relationship to climatic and environmental changes. Hypotheses have focused on two possible drivers of microbial community composition in glacier systems. One is aeolian deposition, in which the microbial load by aerosol, dust, and precipitation events directly determines the amount and composition of microbial species in glacier ice. The other is postdepositional selection, in which the metabolic activity in surface snow causes microbial community shifts in glacier ice. An additional possibility is that both processes occur simultaneously. Aeolian deposition initially establishes a microbial community in the ice, whereas postdeposition selection strengthens the deposition patterns of microorganisms with the development of tolerant species in surface snow, resulting in varying structures of microbial communities with depth. In this minireview, we examine these postulations through an analysis of physical-chemical and biological parameters from the Malan and Vostok ice cores, and the Kuytun 51 Glacial surface and deep snow. We discuss these and other recent results in the context of the hypothesized mechanisms driving microbial community succession in glaciers. We explore our current gaps in knowledge and point out future directions for research on microorganisms in glacial ecosystems.

Dominant bacteria in the different habitats in the Kuytun 51 Glacier were investigated using a 16S rRNA gene clone library sequencing technique. Results showed diverse bacteria on the glacial surface, with the dominant phyla being Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, and Bacteroidetes. UniFrac data showed distinct community patterns between the Kuytun and Himalayan Rongbuk glaciers.

[1] Microorganisms vary in both biomass and diversity composition along glacial depth profiles. However, it is not well known about the major processes controlling the structure diversity shift of microorganisms in a glacier, although, aeolian deposition has been widely accepted as one mechanism regulating the distribution of microorganisms in snow. To better understand the distribution of microorganisms in a glacier, variations in bacterial diversity and biomass along a pit profile from the Kuytun 51 Glacier in the Tianshan Mountains in China were investigated by using 16S rRNA gene library sequencing and flow cytometric analysis with cell sorting markers. Four clone libraries were established from each of the different sampling depths from the snow pit. A total of 311 insert clones were preliminarily screened by HaeIII-based amplified rRNA restriction analysis (ARDRA), and 83 representatives of the unique ARDRA patterns were sequenced. Sequence analysis showed that the bacteria in the snow pit were affiliated with 23 known subphyla within the members of the Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, and Cyanobacteria phyla. To examine diversity shifts in snow, the diversity structures from the snow pit were also compared with those previously recovered from the different habitats along the Kuytun 51 Glacier surface and from the deep Malan Glacier. The results showed structure shift patterns in bacterial diversity among the surface, deep snow, and deep ice. Sequence analysis displayed a dramatic diversity shift from a mixture of Cyanobacteria and other eubacteria across the glacial surface to other eubacteria without Cyanobacteria in the deep snow. However, the biogeochemical analyses showed great variability in the measured abiotic and biotic components along the pit profile, which reinforced the idea of aeolian deposition being a dominant mechanism controlling the size and diversity of microorganisms in snow. Overall, the findings indicated a significant bacterial diversity shift between the surface and deep snow, confirming our hypothesis of a postdeposition influence on the microbial diversity structures in the glacier.

Abstract. Microbial community patterns vary in glaciers worldwide, presenting unique responses to global climatic and environmental changes. Four bacterial clone libraries were established by 16S rRNA gene amplification from four ice layers along the 42-m-long ice core MuztB drilled from the Muztag Ata Glacier. A total of 151 bacterial sequences obtained from the ice core MuztB were phylogenetically compared with the 71 previously reported sequences from three ice cores extracted from ice caps Malan, Dunde, and Puruogangri. Six phylogenetic clusters Flavisolibacter, Flexibacter (Bacteroidetes), Acinetobacter, Enterobacter (Gammaproteobacteria), Planococcus/Anoxybacillus (Firmicutes), and Propionibacter/Luteococcus (Actinobacteria) frequently occurred along the Muztag Ata Glacier profile, and their proportion varied by seasons. Sequence analysis showed that most of the sequences from the ice core clustered with those from cold environments, and the sequence clusters from the same glacier more closely grouped together than those from the geographically isolated glaciers. Moreover, bacterial communities from the same location or similarlyCorrespondence to: S.-R. Xiang (srxiang@ns.lzb.ac.cn) aged ice formed a cluster, and were clearly separate from those from other geographically isolated glaciers. In summary, the findings provide preliminary evidence of zonal distribution of microbial community, and suggest biogeography of microorganisms in glacier ice.

[1] Microbial community dynamics across glaciers in different climatic zones provide important information about the sources, transportation pathways, and deposition of microorganisms. To better understand the possible driving forces of microbial community shifts in glacier ice at a large spatial scale, 16S rRNA gene amplification was used to establish clone libraries containing 95 bacterial sequences from three different habitats in the Qiangyong Gacier in 2005. The libraries were used in phylogenetic comparison with 149 previously reported sequences from the surface samples collected from the Kuytun 51, and East Rongbuk glaciers in the same year. The results showed the presence of cosmopolitan and endemic species, and displayed a tendency of zonal distribution of bacterial communities at genera and community levels, corresponding to the geographic placement of the three glaciers. Data also showed a significant difference in the proportion of dominant phylogenetic groups in the three glaciers. Comamonadaceae/Polaromonas (Betaproteobacteria) and Flexibacteraceae (Bacteroidetes) were dominant in the Qiangyong Glacier, Cyanobacteria, Comamonadaceae/Polaromonas, and Rhodoferax (Betaproteobacteria) were dominant in the Kuytun 51 Glacier, and Acinetobacteria (Gammaproteobacteria) were dominant in the Rongbuk Glacier. In conclusion, the current study provides evidence of microbial biogeography in glacier ice at both the fine lineage and whole community levels. The biogeographical patterns were generally associated with the hydrological transition over the glaciers in the northern periphery and southern part of the Tibetan plateau. This supports our hypothesis of air mass behavior being one of the main drivers determining the zonal distribution of microbial communities across the mountain glaciers in western China.