Taxonomy and Biophysical Properties

Snow fields and glaciers are habitats of microalgae that developed a physiology which is optimized to such an extremely cold and nutrient-poor environment. Five expeditions to Spitsbergen, Svalbard, in consecutive years (1995...1999) have provided an insight into the dispersal, distribution, and the environmental factors that affect snow algae. The last expedition laid the foundation for laboratory cultures enabling an update of an algal checklist. Our special interest is to understand the physiological processes that occur in a snow algal cell as it responds to temperature changes. We suspect that during this adaptation changes occur in the permittivity and conductivity of the cell membrane as well as of the cytoplasm, changes that are necessary to maintain transmembrane metabolism on an optimal level. Using the highly sensitive single cell spectroscopy (Gimsa et al. 1996), changes in both parameters can be measured. Currently we are conducting some preliminary work which is necessary for the adaptation of this method to work with snow algae. First results of this work and our hypothesis will be presented in this paper