Institut für Erd- und Umweltwissenschaften, Universität Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam, Germany.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Oct 2;109(40):16213-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1203849109. Epub 2012 Aug 27.
The global geographic distribution of subseafloor sedimentary microbes and the cause(s) of that distribution are largely unexplored. Here, we show that total microbial cell abundance in subseafloor sediment varies between sites by ca. five orders of magnitude. This variation is strongly correlated with mean sedimentation rate and distance from land. Based on these correlations, we estimate global subseafloor sedimentary microbial abundance to be 2.9⋅10(29) cells [corresponding to 4.1 petagram (Pg) C and ∼0.6% of Earth's total living biomass]. This estimate of subseafloor sedimentary microbial abundance is roughly equal to previous estimates of total microbial abundance in seawater and total microbial abundance in soil. It is much lower than previous estimates of subseafloor sedimentary microbial abundance. In consequence, we estimate Earth's total number of microbes and total living biomass to be, respectively, 50-78% and 10-45% lower than previous estimates.
海底沉积物微生物的全球地理分布及其分布的原因在很大程度上尚未被探索。在这里,我们表明,海底沉积物中微生物细胞的总丰度在各个地点之间变化约五个数量级。这种变化与平均沉积速率和距陆地的距离密切相关。基于这些相关性,我们估计全球海底沉积物中微生物的丰度为 2.9×10(29)个细胞[相当于 4.1 太克(Pg)C 和地球总生物量的约 0.6%]。这一海底沉积物中微生物丰度的估计值与先前对海水和土壤中微生物总丰度的估计值大致相当。它远低于先前对海底沉积物中微生物丰度的估计值。因此,我们估计地球的微生物总数和总生物量分别比先前的估计值低 50-78%和 10-45%。