Cyanobacteria are important colonizers of recently deglaciated proglacial soil but an in-depth investigation of cyanobacterial succession following glacier retreat has not yet been carried out. Here, we report on the successional trajectories of cyanobacterial communities in biological soil crusts (BSCs) along a 100-year deglaciation gradient in three glacier forefields in central Svalbard, High Arctic. Distance from the glacier terminus was used as a proxy for soil age (years since deglaciation), and cyanobacterial abundance and community composition were evaluated by epifluorescence microscopy and pyrosequencing of partial 16S rRNA gene sequences, respectively. Succession was characterized by a decrease in phylotype richness and a marked shift in community structure, resulting in a clear separation between early (10-20 years since deglaciation), mid (30-50 years), and late (80-100 years) communities. Changes in cyanobacterial community structure were mainly connected with soil age and associated shifts in soil chemical composition (mainly moisture, SOC, SMN, K, and Na concentrations). Phylotypes associated with early communities were related either to potentially novel lineages (< 97.5% similar to sequences currently available in GenBank) or lineages predominantly restricted to polar and alpine biotopes, suggesting that the initial colonization of proglacial soil is accomplished by cyanobacteria transported from nearby glacial environments. Late communities, on the other hand, included more widely distributed genotypes, which appear to establish only after the microenvironment has been modified by the pioneering taxa.

• Klíčová slova
• Cyanobacteria, Glacier forefield, High Arctic, High-throughput sequencing, Primary succession, Proglacial soil,
• MeSH
• biodiverzita MeSH
• DNA bakterií MeSH
• fylogeneze * MeSH
• genotyp MeSH
• ledový příkrov mikrobiologie   MeSH
• půda chemie   MeSH
• půdní mikrobiologie * MeSH
• RNA ribozomální 16S genetika   MeSH
• sinice klasifikace   genetika   MeSH
• vysoce účinné nukleotidové sekvenování MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Arktida MeSH
• Svalbard MeSH
• Názvy látek
• DNA bakterií MeSH
• půda MeSH
• RNA ribozomální 16S MeSH