A study on the freshwater algal flora occurring in temporary ponds around the Dasan Arctic Station, Ny-Alesund (Norway), and the molecular characteristics of Chlamydomonas 18S rDNA

Abstract

Freshwater algal studies in North polar environments are relatively few. This study presented the algal-flora, -biomass and genetic features of dominant cells collected from temporary ponds around the Polar Research Station (PRS), Norway. Water samples were collected from 4 stations around PRS, and analyzed for their environmental and biological variables. Water temperature, salinity and conductivity ranged from 5 to 10°C, 0.1 to 0.3‰ and 0.21 to 0.36 μS/cm, respectively. Chlorophyll a concentration ranged from 1.8 to 11.1 μg/l, and that of the size-fractionated cells was recorded from 0.7 to 1.1 μg/l in picoplankton, 0.3 to 6.5 μg/l in nanoplankton, and 0.4 to 3.9 μg/l in microplankton, respectively. Algal flora in the present study was recorded as 10 genera, in which Chlamydomonas, particularly, was dominant in all studied sites. By comparison of Chlamydomonas 18S rDNA sequences, including two isolates from PRS, they formed a distinct clade against others: sequence similarity was significantly low (<97.2%) with C. noctigama, being the highest score by BLAST search in GenBank. This study was valuable for basic knowledge regarding the freshwater algae around PRS and their genetic information.