A comparison of microbial communities in deep-sea polymetallic nodules and the surrounding sediments in the Pacific Ocean

作者：Wu, Yue-Hong; Liao, Li; Wang, Chun-Sheng; Ma, Wei-Lin; Meng, Fan-Xu; Wu, Min; Xu, Xue-Wei^*

来源：Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers , 2013, 79: 40-49.

DOI：10.1016/j.dsr.2013.05.004

• Polymetallic nodule
• Diversity
• Microbial community
• Sediment

Deep-sea polymetallic nodules, rich in metals such as Fe, Mn, and Ni, are potential resources for future exploitation. Early culturing and microscopy studies suggest that polymetallic nodules are at least partially biogenic. To understand the microbial communities in this environment, we compared microbial community composition and diversity inside nodules and in the surrounding sediments. Three sampling sites in the Pacific Ocean containing polymetallic nodules were used for culture-independent investigations of microbial diversity. A total of 1013 near full-length bacterial 165 rRNA gene sequences and 640 archaeal 16S rRNA gene sequences with similar to 650 bp from nodules and the surrounding sediments were analyzed. Bacteria showed higher diversity than archaea. Interestingly, sediments contained more diverse bacterial communities than nodules, while the opposite was detected for archaea. Bacterial communities tend to be mostly unique to sediments or nodules, with only 13.3% of sequences shared. The most abundant bacterial groups detected only in nodules were Pseudoalteromonas and Alteromonas, which were predicted to play a role in building matrix outside cells to induce or control mineralization. However, archaeal communities were mostly shared between sediments and nodules, including the most abundant OTU containing 290 sequences from marine group I Thaumarchaeota. PcoA analysis indicated that microhabitat (i.e., nodule or sediment) seemed to be a major factor influencing microbial community composition, rather than sampling locations or distances between locations.

• 出版日期2013-9
• 单位浙江大学; 国家海洋局第二海洋研究所; 中国极地研究中心