| Abstract: | The microbial population of Sphagnum bogs of northern Russia was analyzed with respect to the presence and cell numbers of representatives of particular phylogenetic groups of prokaryotes by means of in situ hybridization with fluorescently labeled rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes with broad detection spectra. The total number of cells that hybridized with universal Archaea- or Bacteria-specific probes varied, in peat samples of different bogs, from 45 to 83% of the number of cells revealed by DAPI staining. Down the bog profiles, the total number of prokaryotes and the fraction of archaea among them increased. Application of a set of oligonucleotide probes showed that the number of microorganisms belonging to such phylogenetic lineages of the domain Bacteria as the phyla Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Acidobacteria, and Planctomycetes constituted, in total, 14.0-26.5% of the number of eubacteria detected in the samples. Among the bacteria identified in the peat samples, the most abundant were representatives of the classes Alphaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria and the phyla Acidobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria. |
