Diversity of toxin and non-toxin containing cyanobacterial mats of meltwater ponds on the Antarctic Peninsula : a pyrosequencing approach

Acknowledgements We acknowledge the Carl Zeiss Stiftung and the Excellence Initiative of the University of Konstanz, Germany, for funding the PhD project of JK. JK is now a BeIPD Marie-Curie COFUND research fellow at the University of Liège. We are grateful to UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) for funding the AFI-CGS-70 grant and the field trip to Antarctica, as well as all BAS staff for their logistic and scientific support, especially the team of Rothera Research Station. FCK gratefully acknowledges further funding support from NERC (Oceans 2025 WP 4.5 and NF-3 core funding to the Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa). We thank the Antarctic Science Bursary for funding the 454® sequencing. This research was supported by a Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (DRD and SAW). For technical support and stimulating discussion, we are very grateful to Dr David Schleheck, Dr Dominik Martin-Creuzburg, Lisa Zimmermann, Julia Stifel, Martina Sattler and Dr Anne Jungblut. FH is supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). We would also like to thank the reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprintPostprin