Studies for biological ice core analyses using microorganisms growing in the snow and ice of the glacier

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Technical improvement of microbiological analysis of snow and ice : In order to identify bacteria growing in the snow and ice, we collected snow samples from Kuranosuke snow patch in Japan Alps, extracted 16s rRNA DNA from the samples and sequenced these DNA. We could identify bacterial species in the snow samples by matching the sequences with those in the various Databases. Samples of the the melting season contained a psychrophilic bacterium and two psychrotrophic bacteria. Seasonal change of bacterial biomass estimated by Real time PCR strongly suggested that these 3 species are growing in the snow during melt-season. We also succeeded in extraction and seaquencing of 18s rRNA DNA of snow algae and identification of some species.Biological ice core analyses using microorganisms in the snow and ice: We collected shallow ice cores and samples of microorganisms in the snow and ice of the glaciers of various part of the world, such as Alaska, Altai mountains, Chilean Andes and Bhutan Himalaya. Although analyses of the ice cores are still ongoing, all ice cores collected contained microorganisms such as snow algae and bacteria. These microorganisms in the ice cores were analyzed for potential use in ice core analyses. In some ice cores, it was revealed that microorganisms in the ice core, especially snow algae are effective marker of annual layers. We estimated incredibly high net accumulation rate of a Patagonian glacier (10-20m w.e.) by analyzing seasonal change of snow algal biomass in the ice core.