Variability in lake bacterial growth and primary production under ice: Evidence from early winter to spring melt

Climate change is causing seasonally ice-covered lakes of the boreal region to undergo changes in their winter regime by altering patterns of precipitation and temperature, often reflected as reduced snow and ice cover duration. The duration, extent and quality of ice and snow cover have a pivotal role for production and carbon cycling in lakes in winter, with potentially cascading effects for the following open water period. We investigated under-ice carbon cycling by measuring bacterial growth (including bacterial production, bacterial respiration and bacterial growth efficiency) and primary production at five water depths and four key time periods including early winter, midwinter, late winter and melting season in a boreal lake, and report significantly different temporal and vertical patterns. Bacterial respiration was dominant in early and midwinter, whereas the late winter and melting season were dominated by bacterial production. Multiple linear regression models indicated that early winter bacterial respiration was driven by the presence of senescing phytoplankton, whereas bacterial production was promoted by the onset of spring processes. Collectively, bacterial growth indices were inherently linked with bacterioplankton community composition and specific biomarker taxa. Primary production under ice increased in late winter when light-blocking snow cover melted, and primary production measured from the lake ice exceeded that of the water column at the melting season. Ice samples hosted diverse eukaryotic communities including photoautotrophs, suggesting that the habitat potential of the understudied lake ice and the role of ice for ecological processes at ice melt should be further explored.