Bacterial Complexes in Fens of Tomsk Oblast: Abundance, Taxonomic Structure, an Activity

This article contains an analysis of structural and functional parameters of bacterial complexes taken for examination from complete profiles of fens assigned to the Klyukvennoe and Karbyshevskoe wetlands in Tomsk oblast. Bacteria in the fens are revealed throughout the entire profile. Their number determined by a direct method of fluorescence microscopy is high and varies from 27 to 78 × 10 9 cells/g of dry peat. The high number of saprotrophic bacteria (to 10 8 –10 9 CFU/g of dry peat) is detected by the plate method. An increase in the number of saprotrophic bacteria down the fen profile is revealed. These data enable us to conclude for the first time that index k (a dimensionless universal characteristic of natural prokaryotic communities) in fen profiles decreases with depth. The bacterial cultures isolated from the fens studied are assigned to ten taxa: Bacillus , Streptomyces , Arthrobacter , Microbacterium , Pseudomonas , Flavobacterium , Dyadobacter , Janthinobacterium , Pedobacter , and Myxobacteriales . The acrotelm is dominated by bacterial cultures represented by genera Bacillus and Streptomyces ; and Pseudomonas , Dyadobacter , and Arthrobacter are the dominants of the catotelm. The functions of bacterial genera and species identified by molecular biological methods are described. The study of nitrogen fixation, denitrification, and methanogenesis has shown that bacteria are viable and active throughout the entire peat profile.