Microbial diversity in Arctic lakes of West Greenland

In this study, we investigated bacterial diversity and community composition in six different freshwater lake ecosystems in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland in two different thermal layers (epilimnion and hypolimnion). We used a survey of the epilimnetic and hypolimnetic habitat in six lakes that differ in their proximity to the ice sheet to better understand how climate-mediated changes in lake habitat could influence microbial community composition. The goal of this study is two-fold: 1) assess microbial community diversity in these Arctic lakes, and 2) examine within and between lake variability that influences microbial distributions.