Conservation and characterisation of Polar Cyanobacteria by the BCCM/ULC collection

The BCCM/ULC public collection funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office since 2011 aims to gather a representative portion of terrestrial, freshwater and marine cyanobacterial strains with a focus on the polar diversity with different ecological origins (limnetic mats, soil crusts, cryoconites, endoliths…). The collection’s aim is to preserve the deposited biological material, to valorize it by performing research on it, to provide it to interested parties for fundamental and applied research, and to provide services linked to the identification of the Cyanobacteria for the scientific community. An ISO 9001 certificate was obtained for the public deposition and distribution of strains, as part of the multi-site certification for the BCCM consortium.
Currently, the ULC collection contains 253 cyanobacterial strains, with 134 being of Polar origin. Cyanobacteria in the Polar Regions represent key primary producers and are the main drivers of the food webs in a wide range of aquatic to terrestrial habitats. Due to their harsh environments, all these Polar Cyanobacteria may present interesting features to survive, for example, freeze/thaw cycles, fluctuating salt concentrations, high UV radiations, desiccation and other stresses. Morphological identification shows that the strains of BCCM/ULC belong to the orders Synechococcales, Oscillatoriales, Pleurocapsales, Chroococcidiopsidales and Nostocales. The 189 BCCM/ULC strains, for which 16S rRNA sequences were analyzed correspond to 69 OTUs (sequences with > 99 % 16S rRNA similarity), representing a large diversity