Exopolymer alteration of physical properties of sea ice and implications for ice habitability and biogeochemistry in a warmer Arctic.

ABSTRACT: The physical properties of Arctic sea ice determine its habitability. Whether ice-dwelling organisms can change those properties has rarely been addressed. Following discovery that sea ice contains an abundance of gelatinous extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), we examined the effects of algal EPS on the microstructure and salt retention of ice grown from saline solutions containing EPS from a culture of the sea-ice diatom, Melosira arctica. We also experimented with xanthan gum and with EPS from a culture of the cold-adapted bacterium Colwellia psychrerythraea strain 34H. Quantitative microscopic analyses of the artificial ice containing Melosira EPS revealed convoluted ice-pore morphologies of high fractal dimension, mimicking features found in EPS-rich coastal sea ice, whereas EPS-

SUBMITTER: Krembs C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3048104 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature