Аннотация:The Barents Sea shelf is one of the most economically promising regions in the Arcticin terms of its resources and geographic location. However, benthic microbial communities of thenortheastern Barents Sea are still barely studied. Here, we present a detailed systematic description ofthe structures of microbial communities located in the sediments and bottom water of the northeasternBarents Sea based on 16S rRNA profiling and a qPCR assessment of the total prokaryotic abundancein 177 samples. Beta- and alpha-diversity analyses revealed a clear difference between the microbialcommunities of diverse sediment layers and bottom-water fractions. We identified 101 microbial taxawhose representatives had statistically reliable distribution patterns between these ecotopes. Analysisof the correlation between microbial community structure and geological data yielded a number ofimportant results—correlations were found between the abundance of individual microbial taxa andbottom relief, thickness of marine sediments, presence of hydrotrolite interlayers, and the valuesof pH and Eh. We also demonstrated that a relatively high abundance of prokaryotes in sedimentscan be caused by the proliferation of Deltaproteobacteria representatives, in particular, sulfate andiron reducers.
