Bacterial Community Change during Biofilm Development in the Arctic Marine Environment

Abstract

Biofilm is an important life form of microorganisms formed in aquatic environments including oral cavities, water supply systems, fresh water and marine environments. They affect human health and water quality. It also has important ecological roles in aquatic environments such as protection from environmental stress and efficient lysis of macromolecules. In this study, we analyzed bacterial community change during biofilm development in coastal area of Svalbard, Norway. High throughput sequencing technology was applied to determine bacterial community structures of biofilm samples collected once a day for 15 days. The major phyla were Bacteroidetes (45.4%), Alphaproteobacteria (38.6%), and Gammaproteobacteria (8.9%). Thirty two major OTUs (>2%) clustered by 97% sequence similarity cutoff mostly belonged to Rhodobacterales (26.5%) of Alphaproteobacteria and Flavobacteriales (15.2%) of Bacteroidetes. The major OTUs occupied approximately 45% of the whole community. They were assigned to the genera Arenicella, Flavivirga, Hoeflea, Litoreibacter, Maribacter, Octabecabacter, Pelagibacter, Planktomarina, Planktotlea, Polaribacter, Reseovarius, Ruthia, Sulfitobacter, Tenacibaculum and several candiatus genera. Some of them were major components in the early phase and the others were major in the late phase.logical roles in aquatic environments such as protection from environmental stress and efficient lysis of macromolecules. In this study, we analyzed bacterial community change during biofilm development in coastal area of Svalbard, Norway. High throughput sequencing technology was applied to determine bacterial community structures of biofilm samples collected once a day for 15 days. The major phyla were Bacteroidetes (45.4%), Alphaproteobacteria (38.6%), and Gammaproteobacteria (8.9%). Thirty two major OTUs (>2%) clustered by 97% sequence similarity cutoff mostly belonged to Rhodobacterales (26.5%) of Alphaproteobacteria and Flav