Abstract
We studied vertical distribution of bacteria and viruses in different layers of the Arctic sea ice drilled at the North Pole. The sampled multi-year ice was characterized by uneven vertical distribution of bacterial abundance. This characteristic varied within the range of 8±1.2×103 to 95±2.6×103 cells ml-1. The layers with the maximal bacterial abundance were located in the intermediate and lower layers of the ice cores. Bacterial biomass varied from 0.5 to 5 mg C m-3 with the mean value 1.57±0.2 mg C m-3. The ratio of viral to bacterial abundance varied from 0.6 to 28, with the mean value 12.5. The average total number of phages attached to bacteria was 6.2×103 viral particles ml-1. The number of viral particles located within bacterial cells varied from 2 to 21 particles per a bacterial cell. The frequency of visibly infected bacterial cells (FVIC) calculated for the upper, intermediate and lower layers of the ice was 0.92, 1.23 and 0.8% of the total bacterial abundance, respectively. The overall frequency of infected cells (FIC) calculated for the same layers was 6.3, 8.4 and 0.8% of bacteria numbers, respectively, while the viral-mediated mortality of bacteria (VMB) was 7.1, 9.8 and 6.1 %, respectively. Our data show that during the study period the rate of viral infection of bacterial cells and the viral-mediated mortality of bacterial cells in the multy-year ice of the North Pole were relatively low.
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