KAUST Global Collaborative Program, Department of Biology, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, China.
ISME J. 2011 Mar;5(3):507-18. doi: 10.1038/ismej.2010.112. Epub 2010 Jul 29.
The ecosystems of the Red Sea are among the least-explored microbial habitats in the marine environment. In this study, we investigated the microbial communities in the water column overlying the Atlantis II Deep and Discovery Deep in the Red Sea. Taxonomic classification of pyrosequencing reads of the 16S rRNA gene amplicons showed vertical stratification of microbial diversity from the surface water to 1500 m below the surface. Significant differences in both bacterial and archaeal diversity were observed in the upper (20 [corrected] and 50 m) and deeper layers (200 and 1500 m). There were no obvious differences in community structure at the same depth for the two sampling stations. The bacterial community in the upper layer was dominated by Cyanobacteria whereas the deeper layer harbored a large proportion of Proteobacteria. Among Archaea, Euryarchaeota, especially Halobacteriales, were dominant in the upper layer but diminished drastically in the deeper layer where Desulfurococcales belonging to Crenarchaeota became the dominant group. The results of our study indicate that the microbial communities sampled in this study are different from those identified in water column in other parts of the world. The depth-wise compositional variation in the microbial communities is attributable to their adaptations to the various environments in the Red Sea.
红海的生态系统是海洋环境中探索最少的微生物栖息地之一。在这项研究中，我们调查了红海亚特兰蒂斯 II 深海和发现深海上方水柱中的微生物群落。对 16S rRNA 基因扩增子的焦磷酸测序读数进行的分类学分类显示，微生物多样性从地表水到 1500 米以下的垂直分层。在上层（20 [更正]和 50 米）和深层（200 和 1500 米）中都观察到细菌和古菌多样性的显著差异。两个采样站在相同深度的群落结构没有明显差异。上层的细菌群落以蓝细菌为主，而深层则含有大量的变形菌门。在古菌中，广古菌门，特别是盐杆菌目，在上层占优势，但在深层急剧减少，而属于泉古菌门的脱硫球菌目成为主要群体。我们的研究结果表明，本研究中采样的微生物群落与世界其他地区水柱中鉴定的微生物群落不同。微生物群落的深度组成变化归因于它们对红海各种环境的适应。
