Inter-Lake variability of bacterial diversity and community structure in high Arctic lakes of Ny-Alesund, Svalbard

Lakes are present ubiquitously in the Arctic region, which is vulnerable to changes due to climate warming. We studied the bacterial diversity and community structure of three lakes, Tvillingvatnet (TV), Storvatnet (ST), and Knudsenheia (KN) in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard Arctic using 16s V3-V4 amplicon sequencing. TV is located near Broggerbreen glaciers (NG), whereas ST and KN located far from glaciers (FG). These lakes were dominated by Proteobacteriota, Cyanobacteria, Chloroflexi and Acidobacteriota phyla but differed in abundance pattern between lakes. At genera level, Sphingomonas and Pseudanabaena were highly enriched in TV sample, while RB41 and Gitts_GS_136 were dominant in ST and KN samples. Bacterial richness and diversity were lower and significantly different in TV than ST and KN. The Shannon diversity index were significantly different in TV compared to ST and KN. There was a clear partitioning between the NG and FG sample OTUs in beta diversity analysis.