Basal ice often contains entrained subglacial debris and sediment which can serve as a source of nutrients and organic matter and provide habitat for microorganisms adapted to frozen conditions. However, basal ice comes in many different forms and comparatively little is known about how microbial composition, diversity, and activity vary across different types of basal ice. Here, we investigated these parameters in four different types of basal ice from two different glaciers and then used a meta-analysis to compare our findings with microbiome studies of other permanently frozen environments. We found microbiome composition varies substantially between basal ice types, even within the same glacier. Further, the microbiomes of sediment-rich basal ices were distinct from those found in glacial ice and instead were most like those found in permafrost. Consistent with this, microbial diversity was also comparable to that found in permafrost and was much higher relative to glacial ice. Patterns of 16S rRNA read abundance from RNA relative to DNA implicated certain taxa as potentially active in basal ice with ice temperature appearing to be an important predictor for the diversity of taxa inferred to be active. Our results improve our understanding of the microbial ecology of different basal ice types and provide insight into which types are likely habitats for metabolizing microbial communities.
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