Olins Heather C, Rogers Daniel R, Preston Christina, Ussler William, Pargett Douglas, Jensen Scott, Roman Brent, Birch James M, Scholin Christopher A, Haroon M Fauzi, Girguis Peter R
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard UniversityCambridge, MA, United States.
Department of Chemistry, Stonehill CollegeEaston, MA, United States.
Front Microbiol. 2017 Jun 13;8:1042. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.01042. eCollection 2017.
Despite years of research into microbial activity at diffuse flow hydrothermal vents, the extent of microbial niche diversity in these settings is not known. To better understand the relationship between microbial activity and the associated physical and geochemical conditions, we obtained co-registered metatranscriptomic and geochemical data from a variety of different fluid regimes within the ASHES vent field on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. Microbial activity in the majority of the cool and warm fluids sampled was dominated by a population of (likely sulfur oxidizers) that appear to thrive in a variety of chemically distinct fluids. Only the warmest, most hydrothermally-influenced flows were dominated by active populations of canonically vent-endemic . These data suggest that the collected during this study may be generalists, capable of thriving over a broader range of geochemical conditions than the . Notably, the apparent metabolic activity of the -particularly carbon fixation-in the seawater found between discrete fluid flows (the intra-field water) suggests that this area within the Axial caldera is a highly productive, and previously overlooked, habitat. By extension, our findings suggest that analogous, diffuse flow fields may be similarly productive and thus constitute a very important and underappreciated aspect of deep-sea biogeochemical cycling that is occurring at the global scale.
尽管对扩散流热液喷口处的微生物活动进行了多年研究，但这些环境中微生物生态位多样性的程度仍不清楚。为了更好地理解微生物活动与相关物理和地球化学条件之间的关系，我们从胡安德富卡海岭ASHES喷口区的各种不同流体状态中获取了共配准的宏转录组学和地球化学数据。在大多数采集的冷流体和温流体中，微生物活动主要由一群（可能是硫氧化菌）主导，它们似乎能在各种化学性质不同的流体中茁壮成长。只有受热液影响最强烈的最温暖流体，才由典型的喷口特有生物的活跃种群主导。这些数据表明，在本研究中采集的这些生物可能是通才，与那些典型的喷口特有生物相比，它们能够在更广泛的地球化学条件下繁衍生息。值得注意的是，在离散流体流之间的海水中（轴向火山口内的区域水）发现的这些生物的明显代谢活动，尤其是碳固定，表明轴向火山口内的这个区域是一个高产且此前被忽视的栖息地。由此推断，我们的研究结果表明，类似的扩散流场可能同样高产，因此构成了全球范围内正在发生的深海生物地球化学循环中一个非常重要且未得到充分重视的方面。
