Yeasts in high Arctic glaciers: the discovery of a new habitat for eukaryotic microorganisms.
Recently a new habitat for microbial life has been discovered at the base of polythermal glaciers. In ice from these subglacial environments so far only non-photosynthetic bacterial communities were discovered, but no eukaryotic microorganisms. We found high numbers of yeast cells, amounting to a maximum of 4,000 CFU ml(-1) of melt ice, in four different high Arctic glaciers. Twenty-two distinct species were isolated, including two new yeast species. Basidiomycetes predominated, among which Cryptococcus liquefaciens was the dominant species (ca. 90% of total). Other frequently occurring species were Cryptococcus albidus, Cryptococcus magnus, Cryptococcus saitoi and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa. The dominant yeast species were psychrotolerant, halotolerant, freeze-thaw resistant, unable to form mycelium, relatively small-sized and able to utilize a wide range of carbon and nitrogen sources. This is the first report on the presence of yeast populations in subglacial ice.
Butinar
Lorena
L
Laboratory of Biotechnology, National Institute of Chemistry, Hajdrihova 19, SI-1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia. lorena.butinar@ki.si
Spencer-Martins
Isabel
I
Gunde-Cimerman
Nina
N
D001110:Arctic Regions; D003081:Cold Climate; D003080:Cold Temperature; D017753:Ecosystem; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D046448:Ice Cover / Q000382:microbiology*