Abstract

High Arctic meromictic lakes are extreme environments characterized by cold temperatures, low nutrient inputs from their polar desert catchments and prolonged periods of low irradiance and darkness. These lakes are permanently stratified with an oxygenated freshwater layer (mixolimnion) overlying a saline, anoxic water column (monimolimnion). The physical and chemical properties of the deepest known lake of this type in the circumpolar Arctic, Lake A, on the far northern coast of Ellesmere Island, Canada, have been studied over the last 15 years, but little is known about the lake’s biological communities. We applied high-throughput sequencing of the V4 region of the 18S ribosomal RNA gene to investigate the protist communities down the water column at three sampling times: under the ice at the end of winter in 2008, during an unusual period of warming and ice-out the same year, and again under the ice in mid-summer 2009. Sequences of many protist taxa occurred throughout the water column at all sampling times, including in the deep anoxic layer where growth is highly unlikely. Furthermore, there were sequences for taxonomic groups including diatoms and marine taxa, which have never been observed in Lake A by microscopic analysis. However, the sequences of other taxa such as ciliates, chrysophytes, Cercozoa, and Telonema varied with depth, between years and during the transition to ice-free conditions. These seasonally active taxa in the surface waters of the lake are thus sensitive to depth and change with time. DNA from these taxa is superimposed upon background DNA from multiple internal and external sources that is preserved in the deep, cold, largely anoxic water column.

Highlights

  • Meromictic lakes, with saline deep water overlain by fresh water, are known from both the north and south Polar Regions (Vincent et al, 2008b)

  • These deeper waters derived from the original seawater are mostly anoxic and would be predicted to harbor very different species compared to the freshwater surface layer originating from the surface runoff of catchment snowmelt that flows into the moat region and under the ice cover during summer (Veillette et al, 2012)

  • Protist biomass increased in August compared to May by a factor of 2.5, and followed the same trends as chlorophyll a (Chl a), except at 12 m (Figure 1)

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Summary

Introduction

Meromictic lakes, with saline deep water overlain by fresh water, are known from both the north and south Polar Regions (Vincent et al, 2008b) Protists living in these perennially stratified environments encounter a range of extreme conditions. Several meromictic lakes occur along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, Canada, and were formed when seawater was trapped by isostatic uplift following the last de-glaciation and subsequent inflow of meltwater (Jeffries and Krouse, 1985). These lakes owe much of their continued water column stability to yearround ice cover and protection from wind-driven mixing (Vincent et al, 2008a). These deeper waters derived from the original seawater are mostly anoxic and would be predicted to harbor very different species compared to the freshwater surface layer (mixolimnion) originating from the surface runoff of catchment snowmelt that flows into the moat region and under the ice cover during summer (Veillette et al, 2012)

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