Chapter 15 



Problems of Thermophilic Life in Polar Regions 



R. H. McBee 



T 



he search for thermophihc bacteria in polar regions appears 

 to be a fooHsh venture. It would be interesting to know what 

 train of thought led to the first examination of materials from 

 polar regions for thermophiles. As far as I have been able to 

 determine, the first such examinations were of soils from Antarc- 

 tica and were made by Mme. Tsiklinsky in 1905 ( 9 ) . Her results 

 were negative. Egorova (2), however, found aerobic spore- 

 fomiing bacteria capable of growing at 80 C in soil samples from 

 barren islands in the Kara Sea and mud from the bottom of the 

 Arctic Ocean at 79° N. latitude. He apparently did not enumer- 

 ate the thermophilic bacteria in these materials nor did he classify 

 the bacteria found. He did not present any explanation as to how 

 or why thermophilic bacteria were present in this environment. 

 Ocean bottom mud from off the Cahfornia coast was 

 examined for thermophilic bacteria by Bartholomew and Ritten- 

 berg (1). Although this is not a polar region, the in situ tempera- 

 tures were below 10 C. Thermophihc counts of 600-800 bacteria 

 per gm were found in the top twelve inches of the mud. Four 

 cultures which grew well at 60 C but not at 37 C were isolated. 

 They were all large gram-positive spore-forming rods but they 

 were not classified. No attempt was made to explain their 

 presence or significance. 



McBee and McBee (6), attempted to examine the polar 

 theiTnophile problem on a quantitative basis and to deteiTnine 

 what factors were associated with their occurrence. This study 

 was conducted at Point Barrow, Alaska (71° 20' N. latitude). A 

 wide variety of soil and water samples were examined for aerobic 

 thermophilic bacteria. Of 59 such specimens, thermophilic 

 bacteria, one or more per gm were found in 38. Thirty-four 



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