The Study of Soil Bacterial Diversity and the Influence of Soil Physicochemical Factors in Meltwater Region of Ny-Ålesund, Arctic

Abstract

Global climate change has caused the changes of the ecological environment in the Arctic region, including sea ice melting, runoff increase, glacial lake expansion, and a typical meltwater area has formed in the Arctic coastal area. In this study, the meltwater areas near six different characteristic areas of Ny-Ålesund in 2018 were taken as the research objects, and high-throughput sequencing of V3–V4 regions of all samples were performed using 16S rDNA. Among the soil samples of six glacial meltwater areas in Ny-Ålesund, Arctic, the meltwater area near the reservoir bay had the highest bacterial abundance, and the meltwater area near the sand had the lowest one. The dominant phyla in soil samples were Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria. The NH4+-N content in intertidal soil was higher than that in subtidal soil. Through WGCNA analysis and LEFSE analysis, it was found that the core bacteria significantly related to NH4+-N were basically distributed in the intertidal area. For example, Nitrosomonadaceae, Nitrospira and Sphingomonas were the core bacteria showed significant different abundance in the intertidal area, which have the ability to metabolize NH4+-N. Our findings suggest that NH4+-N plays an important role in soil bacterial community structure in the Arctic meltwater areas.