Ice environment
Physicochemical analyses of individual ice blocks were conducted to observe eventual differences that could be attributed to spatially related gradual freezing–melting and fresh ice deposition, and to characterize the habitat that enables long-term survival of ice microbiota. All ice samples contained low concentrations of salts, indicating that they originated from recent clean snow. Concentrations of anions in the upper layers, Ice-1 and Ice-2, were similar. However, the bottom layer Ice-3 had distinctly higher electrical conductivity (EC), hardness and alkalinity, less nitrate, and more sulphate. This could indicate that this ice stratum includes a higher proportion of percolation water, which contains more ions than rain and snow as shown by the differences between the percolation water from the cave Planinska jama (that was used for preparing growth media) and the ice, as shown in Table 1. Total organic carbon (TOC) concentrations in the ice were in a range typical of karst streams22, and above the minimum values reported for surface streams, i.e. 0.1–36.6 mg/l23, indicating a significant input of organic matter for the underground ecosystem. TOC indicates an available in situ source of carbon for the ice microbiome. Nitrogen expressed as nitrate did not exhibit high values in ice samples (Table 1). In this respect, a parallel can be drawn with karst sediments, where microbes are commonly limited more by carbon and phosphorus than by nitrogen24.
Besides EC and temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen are additionaly two influential parametres that can affect the abundance and taxonomic structure of microbial communities. pH was found to drive the shift in the community structure not only in habitats such as freshwater, marine sediments or soils but also in cold habitats as Antarctic soils25. In the current samples, the pH effect on the microbial community structure is less evident because all the values are rather similar (Table 1). Cave ice habitats with incoming waterflow are probably not oxygen depleted; on the contrary, for example in Antarctic lakes, glacial meltwater inflow is responsible for oxygen supersaturation26.
Isotopically, the Ice-3 stratum was significantly lighter than the stratum represented by Ice-1 and Ice-2 (Table 1). Correlation of δ2H and deuterium excess did not indicate any effect of kinetic fractionation during water freezing. Thus, intersection of the freezing-line determined by stable isotopes in samples Ice-1 to Ice-3 (δ2H = 6.48δ18O + 2.88) with the local meteoric-water line (LMWL) constructed for the precipitation station at Postojna (Supplementary Fig. S1) (δ2H = 7.95 δ18O + 12.13), provided the δ18O value − 6.3‰ for the original water before freezing. It represents relatively enriched water, but such a value is not uncommon in daily precipitation in Slovenia27. The ice lake in Paradana is presumably formed by the refreezing of water from melting snow accumulated during the winter months20, with some contribution of water dripping from the cave ceiling. November and December 2015 had only a few days with precipitation in Postojna (5 and 4, respectively). However, January and February 2016 had 12 and 20 days with precipitation and monthly totals were high, 152 mm and 312 mm, respectively. The air temperature data adjusted for the elevation difference between Postojna and the Trnovski gozd karst plateau (about 600 m) indicate that about one third of the precipitation in January and one half in February probably fell as snow. The rest was probably a mixture of solid and liquid precipitation, but heavy rains could have occurred as well (e.g. about 55.5 mm of precipitation was measured in Postojna on February 8–9, with mean daily air temperatures between 8 °C and 9 °C). Isotopic composition of precipitation varied significantly between and also during individual events. It is known that snow cover can preserve the isotopic composition of the original snowfalls for long periods28. However, individual snowfalls can mix at the entrance of the cave and the isotopic composition of snow accumulated in the cave can also be influenced by thaws caused by temporary increases of air temperature or rainfall. The isotopic composition of snowmelt water that eventually refreezes in the cave is therefore the result of many processes. Further research with better temporal and spatial resolution of samples and sampling of snowmelt water would be needed to improve knowledge on the dynamics and sources of ice formation. LMWLs known from the literature for other precipitation stations in Slovenia, i.e. Kozina, Portorož and Ljubljana that are given in Supplementary Fig. S1 provided δ18O values for the original water, which we consider too high (− 3.0‰ for LMWL from Portorož, − 3.8‰ for LMWL from Ljubljana and − 5,1‰ for LMWL from Kozina). Postojna is the closest precipitation station to the Paradana and the data on isotopic composition of precipitation cover the period of ice sampling (Supplementary Fig. S2). Therefore, the LMWL at Postojna could be the best representation of the isotopic composition of precipitation supplying water to the Paradana Ice Cave (after considering the elevation difference between the two sites, which is about 600 m).
When analysed in more detail, results obtained using the approach described above (to calculate the isotopic composition of the water that formed the sampled ice) also revealed the sensitivity of the constructed LMWL, the length of data series and extreme values. This is illustrated by records of isotopically very light precipitation in November and December 2015 (δ18O − 17.6‰ and − 14.2 δ18O, respectively). Although such isotopically light precipitation occurred in just two of the 27 months of the observation period, the two values changed the LMWL intercept significantly. However, because they did occur, they cannot be disregarded in the LMWL construction. Daily precipitation data indicate that in both cases monthly values were influenced dominantly by precipitation that fell during just one day (precipitation on those days represented almost the entire monthly precipitation). The LMWL intercept at Postojna without those two months would be 8.3, i.e. closely similar to values in Ljubljana and Kozina. Long-term data from Ljubljana show that the δ18O value of monthly precipitation was lower than − 16.0‰ (values around − 14.0‰ were quite abundant until 1986 and after 2004) in only 5 months in the years 1981–2010. Thus, precipitation with notable isotopically light values, as observed in Postojna between 21 and 23 November 2015 (92% of the precipitation fell on 22 November) appears to be rare in the study area. Nevertheless, it was observed, and it influenced the intercept of LMWL significantly.
It is worth noting that the δ18O values of Ice-1 and Ice-2 are higher than those reported for the Paradana Ice Cave by Carey et al.20. Deuterium excess is also significantly higher than the mean value reported for samples from different depths of ice by Carey et al.20. The difference in δ18O values could be related to different sampling sites. Carey et al.20 sampled the wall ice, whereas the samples collected during this study represent the frozen lake. Investigation of the difference in deuterium levels would be especially interesting. It could point at the input (either by overland flow from the cave entrance or by percolation from the vadose zone) of water from the autumn/winter months, with precipitation from the Eastern Mediterranean air masses having particularly high d-excess (up to 22‰). The Western Mediterranean air masses have d-excess of about 14‰, whereas air masses from the Atlantic have values of only about 10‰29. Late autumn to early winter precipitation in Slovenia (October to December) regularly exhibits high d-excess27. Unfortunately, the available data are insufficient to support analysis of the reason for high deuterium excess of the ice in detail. Study samples also display far lower concentrations of chloride, sulphate and nitrate than samples collected by Carey et al.20.
Concentration of microbes in cave ice
The upper ice stratum represented by Ice-1 and Ice-2 had comparable microbial load expressed in total ATP concentration and total cell counts, whereas the Ice-3 block exhibited significantly higher values (Table 1). Interestingly, the total cell counts of microorganisms in the ice samples was similar (4.67 × 104–15.15 × 104) to that recorded in the Pivka River (SW Slovenia) at the ponor connecting to the karst underground, i.e. 4.29 × 104–12.38 × 104, 30. A large proportion (51.0–85.4%) of entrapped microbes in the ice were viable, showing that they were able to survive ice formation and melting, or even several freezing–melting cycles. A relatively high cell viability can be linked to the availability of compatible solutes, indicated by correspondingly high TOC (Table 1). Not only do sugars and polyols increase microbial resistance to freezing, they can also be used inside the cell as carbon and nitrogen sources31. Higher concentration of salts in Ice-3 block was accompanied by the highest total cell counts and percentage of viable cells (Table 1). In ice from Scărişoara Cave total cell counts varied from 0.84 × 103 to 3.14 × 104 cells/ml with corresponding viability from 28.2 to 84.9%, but no correlation was observed between the ice age (0–13,000 years BP) or depth (0–25 m) and the total number of cells or viability14.
The media types used in this study differed in their ability to stimulate the growth of colonies. In general, nutrient-poor media and low temperatures resulted in higher colony counts in all samples. This phenomenon has been reported previously in cave microbiology, but was not correlated with phylogenetic diversity of microbes obtained on the growth media32. After 28 days of incubation, samples grown on the oligotrophic medium with percolation water (PWA) and cultivated at 10 °C produced the highest colony counts (Table 2). In context this indicates that cave percolation water contains soluble compounds that are not present in tap water and which support the growth of cave-ice microorganisms. With respect to individual samples, the highest colony counts were found in the Ice-3 sample, i.e., 167.37‰ of all cell biomass, determined by flow cytometry (Table 2), and this sample also contained the highest concentration of nutrients (Table 1). Cultivable anaerobic bacteria and fungi were detected in all the ice samples (Table 2).
Communities in the ice blocks differed in the representation of r-strategists, with their predominance in the Ice-1, and a big difference between Ice-1 and Ice-2, the two ice samples from the same stratum. Interestingly, a more-uniform community structure in terms of r-strategists was displayed in ice block Ice-2–Ice-3 (Table 1). R-strategists commonly dominate in uncrowded and unstable habitats where resources are temporarily abundant and available; with development of a community, r-strategists are gradually replaced by the slow-growing equilibrium K-strategists33.
Cultivation on different media showed that the ice contained metabolically diverse microorganisms, aerobic and anaerobic bacteria and fungi. Two species of yellow-green algae were also recovered in cultures from samples Ice-2 and Ice-3. The two cultivated species, Chloridella glacialis and Ellipsoidion perminimum (for identification see Supplementary Fig. S3), were also found in green ice from Antarctica34. It is known from results of previous studies that algae in ice can survive and even grow under such adverse conditions34,35,36. They can also be well adapted to low light and low water temperature; for example they can thrive under ice- and snow-cover where the available photosynthetic photon flux density is only around the photosynthetic compensation point37. In these terms, and particularly in ice caves with available light, algae and cyanobacteria should not be overlooked as an important part of the ice microbial community. Interestingly, in Himalayan-type glaciers, the algae-rich layers in ice cores were suggested as providing accurate boundary markers of annual layers38. It remains unclear whether algae can be applied similarly as boundary markers in cave ice. Their existence is already known from some caves, for example in Hungary in a small ice cave colonizing surfaces of the ice39, Romania in Scarişoara Ice Cave at the ice/water interface40 and in New Mexico, USA, in Zuni Ice Cave giving the distinctive greenish patina of the layered ice35.
Bacterial community structure
Previous study of ice from the Paradana Ice Cave showed that it probably originates from local rainfall that reaches the cave as drip water after dissolving bedrock while percolating from the surface, and from snow that includes dust particles20. Thus, the largely impacted cave ice in Paradana has different sources, each bringing along a diverse and adaptable microbiota. 16S metagenomic analysis was conducted to describe the taxonomic composition of bacteria found in different ice blocks. Quality filtration of sequence readings gave a total number of 120,381 sequences in the three studied samples (Table 3). The number of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) varied from 185 in Ice-2 to 304 in Ice-1. This pattern was in alignment with values of alpha diversity parameters: extrapolated richness (Chao1), abundance-based coverage estimator (ACE) and Shannon index (Table 3). The rarefaction curves indicated that the diversity had been sampled sufficiently (Supplementary Fig. S4).
A Venn diagram of the distribution of 441 distinct OTUs found in the three studied samples is presented in Fig. 1. Observations showed that 119 OTUs (28.3%) occurred in all three samples and can be interpreted as “a core microbiome”. Three of these OTUs dominated microbial communities in individual samples (relative abundance range 14.5–56.5%) and corresponded to the members of the genera Pseudomonas, Lysobacter, and Sphingomonas, as discussed below. These were followed in abundance by Polaromonas, Flavobacterium, Rhodoferax, Nocardioides, and Pseudonocardia (relative abundance range 3.3–6.9%). Another 35 OTUs had relative abundance above 0.5% and the remaining 76 OTUs had relative abundance below 0.5%. The unique OTUs probably contribute to the variability due to internal variations within the ice block caused by incoming snow or the freezing of percolation water. For example, samples Ice-2 and Ice-3 were cut from the same ice block in a vertical ice profile, but differed in their content of dark, particulate, organic inclusions.
Prokaryotic OTU distribution in cave ice. The Venn diagram indicates the number of distinct and shared OTUs in ice samples Ice-1, Ice-2 and Ice-3.
Members of 29 bacterial phyla were detected in the cave ice microbiome (Fig. 2, Supplementary Fig. S5). All samples were dominated by Proteobacteria, with relative abundances of 79.1% in Ice-2, 65.5% in Ice-3 and 55.9% in Ice-1.
Relative abundance of phyla in the cave-ice samples. Phyla with relative abundance < 1.0% were classified together as “Rare phyla”.
Proteobacteria commonly represent a dominant group in various cold habitats where their abundance is associated with increased nitrogen loads and copiotrophic growth conditions41,42,43. Indeed, Proteobacteria are commonly associated with water influx into the karst underground44,45,46. The prevalence of Proteobacteria in the ice samples coincided with the decreasing trend of TOC concentration in samples Ice-2, Ice-3 and Ice-1 (Table 1). This notion was further supported by a low relative abundance of members of the class Acidobacteria (0.1–0.3%, Supplementary Fig. S5), whose members are mostly oligotrophs47. Because Proteobacteria form the core of the cave-ice communities studied, it is likely that they play an essential role in the functioning of this recently formed ice ecosystem.
The second most abundant phylum in the studied samples was Actinobacteria, a group associated with cave sediment communities48, 49. Its relative abundance declined from 31.4% in sample Ice-1 to 26.7% in sample Ice-3 and 12.0% in sample Ice-2. This compares with the results from Scărişoara Cave, where the microbiome was dominated by Actinobacteria (38.5%) over Proteobacteria (33.5%), but Proteobacteria were assigned as the largest group of metabolically active microbes14.
In Paradana the relative abundance of Bacterioidetes phylotypes was comparably lower than that of the other two and was 4.3% in Ice-1, 3.2% in Ice-2, and 2.8% in Ice-3. Three other bacterial phyla represented > 1% of phylotypes in at least one sample and corresponded to Firmicutes, Cyanobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes. Phototrophic bacterial phylotypes belonging to Cyanobacteria were recovered from all three samples. They represented 1.3% of phylotypes in sample Ice-1, but only 0.6% and 0.3% in samples Ice-2 and Ice-3 respectively, from where algae, C. glacialis and E. perminimum, were obtained via cultivation.
Phyla whose relative abundance was less than 1% were grouped together and classified as “Rare phyla”. These phyla comprised 2.2%, 1.5% and 1.2% of Ice-1, Ice-2, and Ice-3, respectively. Their relative abundance is presented in Supplementary Fig. S5.
Among the 31 classes detected in this study, members of Gammaproteobacteria were most abundant and represented 20.1% (Ice-1), 45.3% (Ice-2) and 42.5% (Ice-3) of total detected phylotypes (Fig. 3A). This proteobacterial group was also most abundant in the ice from Scărişoara Cave14. Actinobacteria represented the second most abundant group of phylotypes, with its relative abundances declining from 30.8% in Ice-1 to 26.2% in Ice-3 and 11.7% in Ice-2. Other notably abundant classes were Alpha- and Betaproteobacteria, whose abundances ranged from 9.6 to 26.3% and from 6.9 to 12.3%, respectively.
Heat-map analysis of the relative abundance of members of cave-ice prokaryotic communities at class (A) and genus (B) levels in Ice-1, Ice-2 and Ice-3. Phylotypes whose relative abundances at class level were < 0.1% and phylotypes whose relative abundances at genus level were < 0.05% were amalgamated and classified as “Rare taxa”.
Representatives of phylum Bacteroides, classes Flavobacteria, Sphingobacteria, Bacteroidia, and Cytophagia, represented 0.08–2.0% of detected phylotypes. Firmicutes were represented by classes Clostridia (1.0–1.8%) and Bacilli (0.6–2.1%), while the abundance of Gemmatimonadetes (0.3–1.8%), the only class of the phylum, was similar to that described in soil, around 2.0%50, and is probably a consequence of soil deposition in the ice. The relative abundances of the remaining 17 classes were less than 1.0%. These included Cyanobacteria, which were represented by the classes Nostocophycideae, Oscillatoriophycideae and Synechococcophycidae.
At the genus level, ice cave sequences from three samples corresponded to 442 genera, but only 43 genera had abundances greater than 0.5% in all samples (Fig. 3B). For comparison, 526 genera were identified in Scărişoara Cave14. The most abundant genera in the Paradana samples were Pseudomonas and Lysobacter (Gammaproteobacteria); however, their abundance varied within the samples.
Pseudomonas spp. are known to thrive in cold environments, precipitation and clouds51, 52. In this study, Pseudomonas dominated sample Ice-3 (53.2%), yet was scarce in Ice-1 (0.5%) and Ice-2 (0.2%). In a contrast, Lysobacter phylotypes are usually found in waters and soils53,54,55,56 and were dominant in Ice-1 (23.6%) and Ice-2 (56.6%), but represented only a minor portion of phylotypes in Ice-3 (0.7%). Lysobacter members are pigment producers; for example, L. oligotrophus synthesises a water-soluble melanin pigment57, which could be partly responsible for dark coloration of the ice.
Sphingomonas spp. represented the third most abundant phylotypes. Members of the family Sphingomonadaceae were commonly found in cave drips58. In Scărişoara Cave, members of Sphingomonas were particularly common in recently formed ice strata 14. In Paradana the abundance of Sphingomonas phylotypes followed that of Lysobacter spp. and was 19.2% and 14.5% in Ice-1 and Ice-2, but only 1.1% in Ice-3.
It is possible that the above mentioned dominant bacteria interact with each other, but the nature of any interactions is not yet elucidated. For example, Lysobacter is commonly know for its antagonism towards other bacteria under nutrient-poor conditions, but in a direct assay of Lysobacter predation, the population of Pseudomonas fluorescens was not affected59. Furthermore, plant-colonizing Sphingomonas protect plants against pathogenic P. syringae60, 61 but there are reports that Sphingomonas can be outcompeted by fast growing Pseudomonas 62.
It is important to mention specific genera that represented a minor portion of diversity. Polaromonas phylotypes are particularly abundant in polar and high-elevation environments owing to the dispersal of dormant cells by air currents63. In cave ice, Polaromonas phylotypes represented a minor proportion of the diversity. They were most abundant in Ice-3 (6.9%), and scarce in Ice-1 (1.1%) and Ice-2 (0.7%). Other notable genera whose abundance exceeded 0.5% were Flavobacterium (abundance range 2.7–3.6%), Nocardioides (abundance range 0.8–3.7%), Pseudonocardia (0.6–3.3%) and Pedobacter (0.5–2.9%), which are common in a variety of natural environments. In particular Flavobacterium is common in a variety of cryospheric habitats64.
Source: Ecology - nature.com
