Preliminary observations on psychrotrophic and psychrophilic,heterotrophic bacteria from antarctic water samples

Bacteria isolated from antarctic sea and lake water samples were examined for growth at 5 °C and 25 °C. Of 250 isolates, 249 were psychrotrophic and one was psychrophilic. The effect of temperature on the growth rate of the latter (strain 755) and a typical psychrotroph (strain 203A) was described by the square root of the growth rate constant. T_MIN values calculated from this model confirmed the strains as psychrophile and psychrotroph.Identification of 93 isolates showed the majority to be Pseudomonas (82%), with Flavobacterium and Moraxella representing 13% of the isolates. The remainder were coryneforms and yeasts. Isolate 611 was studied in detail because of its unusual morphology. This strain has features in common with the genera Spirosoma, Runella and Flectobacillus, but cannot be assigned with certainty. It may represent a new taxon of curved, gram negative bacteria.