Cold adaptation and functionality of the Antarctic Coastal Benthic Zones

Antarctic sediments and sea-ice are important regulators in global biogeochemical and atmospheric cycles. These ecosystems contain a diverse range of bacteria whose biogeochemical roles remains largely unknown and which inhabit what are continually low temperature habitats. An integrated molecular and chemical approach will be used to investigate the coupling of microbial biogeochemical processes with community structure and cold adaptation within coastal Antarctic marine sediments and within sea-ice. Overall the project expects to make an important contribution to our understanding of biological processes within low temperature habitats. DATA SET ORGANISATION: The dataset is organised on the basis of publication and is organised on the basis of the following sections: 1. SEDIMENT SAMPLES and ISOLATES Samples collected are described in terms of location, type and where data were obtained chemical features. The designation, source, media used for cultivation and isolation and availability of sediment and other related isolates are provided. Samples included are from the following locations: Clear Lake, Pendant Lake, Scale Lake, Ace Lake, Burton Lake, Ekho Lake, Organic Lake, Deep lake and Taynaya Bay (Burke Basin), Vestfold Hills region; and the Mertz Glacier Polynya region. 2. BIOMASS and ENZYME ACTIVITY DATA Biomass, numbers and extracellular enzyme activity data are provided for Bacteria and Archaea populations from Mertz Glacier Polynya shelf sediments. 3. FATTY ACID and TETRAETHER LIPID DATA Phospholipid and tetraether lipid data are provided for Mertz Glacier Polynya shelf sediments. Whole cell fatty acid data are provided for various bacterial isolates described officially as new genera or species. 4. RNA HYBRIDISATION DATA RNA hybridisation data for Mertz Glacier Polynya sediment samples is provided, including data for oligonucleotide probes specifc for total Bacteria, Archaea, the Desulfosarcina group (class Deltaproteobacteria, sulfate reducing bacterial clade), phylum Planctomycetes, phylum Bacteroidetes (Cytophaga-Flavobacterium-Bacteroides), class Gammaproteobacteria, sulfur-oxidizing and related bacteria (a subset of class Gammaproteobacteria) and Eukaryota. 5. PHYLOGENETIC DATA 16S rRNA gene sequence data are indicated including aligned datasets for three clone libraries derived from the Mertz Glacier Polynya including GenBank accession numbers. Sequence accession numbers are provided for Vestfold Hills lake sediment samples. In addition GenBank numbers are provided for denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis band sequence data from Mertz Glacier Polynya shelf sediment. Other forms of this DGGE data (banding profile analysis) are available in reference Bowman et al. 2003 (AAD ref 10971).