The evolutionary relationships and taxonomic position of two marine planktonic bacterial strains BSw20211 and BSwl0014, isolated from the Canada Basin and from the Southern Ocean, respectively, were determined using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. There was a close phylogenetic relationship between the two strains and most phenotypic properties were shared. Nonetheless, they were found to belong to different species of the genus Pseudoalteromonas on the basis of genotypic analyses. Findings were consistent with the suggestion that gyrB gene sequence comparison and DNA-DNA relatedness might better define phylogenetic relationships of bacteria at the species level. However, a cut-off value of 90% gyrB gene sequence similarity was not reliable for the differentiation of species within the genus Pseudoalteromonas.
Because of the limitations of sampling and seasonal study in polar regions, knowledge of dinoflagellate diversity, distribution and ecology are limited. Dinoflagellates have been incidentally reported from polar regions during some seasons and some populations have been reported as components of microalgae. Surveys of molecular diversity link the genotype of dinoflagellates from polar regions with environmental adaptation. In this study, 37 positive clones of dinoflagellates collected from different sites were used for genotype analysis, providing new insights into the biodiversity and distribution of these species based on 18S rRNA sequencing. Diverse genotypes were recorded for the summer season in Kongsfjorden （high Arctic） whilst a single novel genotype of dinoflagellate was recorded from winter samples from the Antarctic Ocean. Data from ice cores suggests that this single dinoflagellate genotype was adapted to extreme cold and clone library screening found that it was occasionally the only microbial eukaryotic genotype found in winter ice cores. The findings of this study could improve our understanding of the diverse dinoflagellate genotypes occurring in these perennially cold microbial ecosystems.
Standard FISH protocols using fluorochrome-labeled oligonucleotide probes have been successfully applied for in situ detection.However,optimized protocols of FISH for specific eukaryotes in marine environments are often not developed.This study optimized the conditions of fluorescence in situ hybridization （FISH） by using two polar isolated microalgae.The modified conditions were as follows：（1） 10 mg·mL^（-1） lysozyme solution pretreatment at 37℃for 30 min;（2） the hybridization buffer including 20%formamide;（3） the hybridization condition was 47℃for 6 h.The cells enumerated by FISH were compared with those enumerated by flow cytometry（FCM） and DAPI to confirm the cell loss and hybridization efficiency.The optimized protocol was also successfully applied to Arctic Ocean samples,which were found to be dominated by Micromonas sp.The modified protocol showed a high relative efficiency and could be successfully applied for the detection of specific microbial eukaryotes in environmental samples.
