Bioprospecting a glacial river in Iceland for bacterial biopolymer degraders

•382 bacterial strains were isolated from 12 locations along a glacial river.•Pseudomonads and Flavobacteria were the most prominent groups.•Many of the strains produced extracellular enzymes at 15 °C.•Laccase, amylase, cellulase, betaglucanase and protease were among enzymes produced.

The glacial river Jökulsá á Fjöllum, which originates in the Vatnajökull ice cap and flows through a large basaltic tephra desert on its way to discharge into the Arctic Ocean, presents a number of unique microbial habitats heretofore unexplored. We sampled river water, sediment and selected other biotopes at 12 sampling points along the river from source to mouth and generated a collection of 382 purified and confirmed reculturable psychrotrophic bacterial strains. Partial 16S rDNA sequencing yielded 19 genera and 4 non-genus specific assignments in 4 bacterial phyla, with pseudomonads and flavobacteria being particularly well represented. A large portion of the isolates produced extracellular enzymes at 15 °C, including amylase, betaglucanase, cellulase, protease and laccase.