ABSTRACT
The available literature on bacteria from polar oceans is small and information on sea ice associated bacteria is very scant. There is no reason to believe that at least a portion of the seawater bacterial community also inhabits the ice, since sea ice presumably is inoculated or "seeded" primarily from the water column. One might also expect ice bacteria to be physiologically unique because of differences in the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of ice microenvironment compared with the water column. Microorganisms with similar threshold nucleation temperatures may be relevant to ice formation in seawater. Bacterial isolates collected from the surface of Beaufort Sea ice were characterized as Gram-negative rods which occur as single cells. From the literature some information is available on distribution and abundance, morphological and taxonomic diversity, activity, growth, and associations of ice bacteria with ice algae. In addition to ecological studies, the ice-associated bacteria may provide source material for unique microorganisms useful in biotechnology.
