Earth’s Cryosphere, 2011, Vol. XV, No. 4, p. 93-95

A CULTIVABLE MICROBIAL COMMUNITY IN THE LOWER YENISEI AND THE KARA SEA SHELF: DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTION

M.Yu. Suslova, V.V. Parfenova, O.N. Pavlova, T.Ya. Kostornova, А.P. Fedotov

Limnological Institute, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 3, Ulan-Batorskaya str., Irkutsk, 664033, Russia; suslova@lin.irk.ru

Microbial biota was studied in samples of water and bottom sediments from the Kara Sea and the Yenisei estuary collected in August through October 2009. The study included estimating the abundances of organotrophic, psychrophilic, and hydrocarbon-oxidizing bacteria, as well as spore-forming Bacillus genus. Bacillus made up 41.3 % of the total Kara Sea organotrophic community in the water and surface sediments and 54 % in the Yenisei. Hydrocarbon oxidizers isolated by filtering were the least abundant in the Yenisei estuary and the most abundant along the Dikson Village – Sibiryakov Island profile. The abundances of microorganisms in bottom sediment samples were two orders of magnitude higher than in the water, psychrophiles being the dominant group.

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