Dataset Information

Taxonomic diversity of microbial communities in sub-seafloor hydrothermal sediments of the active Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Active hydrothermal vents of volcanic origin provide a remarkable manifestation of life on Earth under extreme conditions, which may have consequences for our understanding of habitability on other terrestrial bodies as well.

Methods

Here, we performed for the first time Illumina sequencing of bacterial and archaeal communities on sub-seafloor samples collected from the Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field. A total of 19 (3-m long) gravity corers were collected and processed for microbial community analysis.

Results

From a total of 6,46,671 produced V4 sequences for all samples, a total of 10,496 different Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) were identified that were assigned to 40 bacterial and 9 archaeal phyla and 14 candidate divisions. On average, the most abundant phyla in all samples were Chloroflexi (Chloroflexota) (24.62%), followed by Proteobacteria (Pseudomonadota) (11.29%), Firmicutes (Bacillota) (10.73%), Crenarchaeota (Thermoproteota) (8.55%), and Acidobacteria (Acidobacteriota) (8.07%). At the genus level, a total of 286 known genera and candidate genera were mostly dominated by members of Bacillus, Thermoflexus, Desulfatiglans, Pseudoalteromonas, and Pseudomonas.

Discussion

In most of the stations, the Chao1 values at the deeper layers were comparable to the surface sediment samples denoting the high diversity in the subsurface of these ecosystems. Heatmap analysis based on the 100 most abundant OTUs, grouped the sampling stations according to their geographical location, placing together the two hottest stations (up to 99°C). This result indicates that this specific area within the active Kolumbo crater create a distinct niche, where microorganisms with adaptation strategies to withstand heat stresses can thrive, such as the endospore-forming Firmicutes.

SUBMITTER: Polymenakou PN

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10345502 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Taxonomic diversity of microbial communities in sub-seafloor hydrothermal sediments of the active Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field.

Polymenakou Paraskevi N PN Nomikou Paraskevi P Hannington Mark M Petersen Sven S Kilias Stephanos P SP Anastasiou Thekla I TI Papadimitriou Vasiliki V Zaka Eleutheria E Kristoffersen Jon Bent JB Lampridou Danai D Wind Sandra S Heinath Verena V Lange Sabine S Magoulas Antonios A

Frontiers in microbiology 20230629

<h4>Introduction</h4>Active hydrothermal vents of volcanic origin provide a remarkable manifestation of life on Earth under extreme conditions, which may have consequences for our understanding of habitability on other terrestrial bodies as well.<h4>Methods</h4>Here, we performed for the first time Illumina sequencing of bacterial and archaeal communities on sub-seafloor samples collected from the Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field. A total of 19 (3-m long) gravity corers were collected and proces ...[more]

PMID: 37455712

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Project description:The Guaymas Basin in the Gulf of California is characterized by active seafloor spreading, hydrothermal activity, and organic matter accumulation on the seafloor due to high sedimentation rates. In the hydrothermal sediments of Guaymas Basin, microbial community compositions and coexistence patterns change across steep gradients of temperature, potential carbon sources, and electron acceptors. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling and guanine-cytosine percentage analyses reveal that the bacterial and archaeal communities adjust compositionally to their local temperature regime. Functional inference using PICRUSt shows that microbial communities consistently maintain their predicted biogeochemical functions in different sediments. Phylogenetic profiling shows that microbial communities retain distinct sulfate-reducing, methane-oxidizing, or heterotrophic lineages within specific temperature windows. The preservation of similar biogeochemical functions across microbial lineages with different temperature adaptations stabilizes the hydrothermal microbial community in a highly dynamic environment. IMPORTANCE Hydrothermal vent sites have been widely studied to investigate novel bacteria and archaea that are adapted to these extreme environments. However, community-level analyses of hydrothermal microbial ecosystems look beyond the presence and activity of particular types of microbes and examine to what extent the entire community of bacteria and archaea is adapted to hydrothermal conditions; these include elevated temperatures, hydrothermally generated carbon sources, and inorganic electron donors and acceptors that are characteristic for hydrothermal environments. In our case study of bacterial and archaeal communities in hydrothermal sediments of Guaymas Basin, we found that sequence-inferred microbial function was maintained in differently structured bacterial and archaeal communities across different samples and thermal regimes. The resulting preservation of biogeochemical functions across thermal gradients is an important factor in explaining the consistency of the microbial core community in the dynamic sedimentary environment of Guaymas Basin.

Dataset Information

Taxonomic diversity of microbial communities in sub-seafloor hydrothermal sediments of the active Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field.

Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

Publications

Taxonomic diversity of microbial communities in sub-seafloor hydrothermal sediments of the active Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field.

Similar Datasets

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