Picoplanktonic diatoms of Russian Arctic Seas revealed by metagenome analyze

The taxonomic composition of Bacillariophyta in picofraction of the late summer phytoplankton of three Russian Arctic Seas – the Kara, the Laptev and the East-Siberian, was studied by next generation sequencing (NGS) of short hypervariable V4 region of the SSU rRNA. The sequences of six diatom genera that shares more than 98% of similarity were revealed — Chaetoceros, Minutocellus, Arcocellulus, Skeletonema, Minidiscus and Thalassiosira. Minutocellus polymorphus or/and Arcocellulus cornucervis were identified in the plankton of the Russian Arctic seas for the first time.