Bacterial biodiversity from Roopkund Glacier, Himalayan mountain ranges, India

• Published in: Extremophiles : life under extreme conditions Vol. 14; no. 4; pp. 377 - 395
• Main Authors: Pradhan, Suman, Srinivas, T. N. R, Pindi, Pavan Kumar, Kishore, K. Hara, Begum, Z, Singh, Pawan Kumar, Singh, Ashish Kumar, Pratibha, M. S, Yasala, Arun K, Reddy, G. S. N, Shivaji, S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Japan Japan : Springer Japan 01.07.2010; Springer Japan; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: 16S rRNA gene library; Actinobacteria; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Aquatic soils; Bacteria; Bacteria - classification; Bacteria - genetics; Bacteria - isolation & purification; Base Sequence; Biochemistry; Biodiversity; Biogeochemistry; Biological and medical sciences; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biotechnology; Cloning, Molecular; Colony Count, Microbial; DNA Primers; Freshwater; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Glacial lakes; Glacial soils; Glaciers; India; Lakes; Life Sciences; Microbial activity; Microbial Ecology; Microbiology; Original Paper; Polymerase Chain Reaction; Principal components analysis; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - genetics; soil analysis; Soil sciences; Space life sciences; Asia; South Asia; India; Himalaya Mountains; Soil analysis; 16S rRNA gene library; Glacier; Ribosomal DNA; Gene library; Biodiversity; Gene bank; Soils; Mountain; Glacial environment; 16S-RNA; Bacteria; Extreme environment
• ISSN: 1431-0651; 1433-4909
• DOI: 10.1007/s00792-010-0318-3

The bacterial diversity of two soil samples collected from the periphery of the Roopkund glacial lake and one soil sample from the surface of the Roopkund Glacier in the Himalayan ranges was determined by constructing three 16S rRNA gene clone libraries. The three clone libraries yielded a total of 798 clones belonging to 25 classes. Actinobacteria was the most predominant class (>10% of the clones) in the three libraries. In the library from the glacial soil, class Betaproteobacteria (24.2%) was the most predominant. The rarefaction analysis indicated coverage of 43.4 and 41.2% in the samples collected from the periphery of the lake thus indicating a limited bacterial diversity covered; at the same time, the coverage of 98.4% in the glacier sample indicated most of the diversity was covered. Further, the bacterial diversity in the Roopkund glacier soil was low, but was comparable with the bacterial diversity of a few other glaciers. The results of principal component analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene clone library data, percentages of OTUs and biogeochemical data revealed that the lake soil samples were different from the glacier soil sample and the biogeochemical properties affected the diversity of microbial communities in the soil samples.