Sun Jianxing, Zhou Hongbo, Cheng Haina, Chen Zhu, Wang Yuguang
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering Central South University Changsha China.
Key Laboratory of Biohydrometallurgy of Ministry of Education Changsha China.
mLife. 2025 Apr 24;4(2):205-218. doi: 10.1002/mlf2.70006. eCollection 2025 Apr.
Microorganisms dominate marine environments in the polar oceans and are known to harbor greater diversity and abundance than was once thought, and yet, little is known about their biogeographic distribution patterns in marine sediments at a broad spatial scale. In this study, we conducted extensive sampling of marine sediments along a latitudinal transect spanning 2500 km from the Bering Sea to the Arctic Ocean to investigate the geographical distribution patterns of bacteria, archaea, and fungi. Our findings revealed that the community similarities of bacteria and fungi decay at similar rates with increasing geographical distance (slope: -0.005 and -0.002), which are much lower than the decay rate of archaeal communities (slope: -0.012). Notably, microbial richness and community composition showed significant differences in the region of 75-80°N compared to other regions in 60-75°N. Salinity, temperature, pH, ammonium nitrogen, and total organic carbon are key factors that significantly affect microbial community variations. Furthermore, bacterial co-occurrence networks showed more complex interactions but lower modularity than fungal counterparts. This study provides crucial insights into the spatial distribution patterns of bacteria, archaea, and fungi in the Arctic marine sediments and will be critical for a better understanding of microbial global distribution and ecological functions.
微生物在极地海洋的海洋环境中占主导地位，并且已知其具有比以往认为的更大的多样性和丰度，然而，在广泛的空间尺度上，关于它们在海洋沉积物中的生物地理分布模式却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们沿着从白令海到北冰洋跨越2500公里的纬度断面进行了广泛的海洋沉积物采样，以研究细菌、古菌和真菌的地理分布模式。我们的研究结果表明，细菌和真菌群落的相似性随着地理距离的增加以相似的速率衰减（斜率：-0.005和-0.002），这远低于古菌群落的衰减速率（斜率：-0.012）。值得注意的是，与60-75°N的其他区域相比，75-80°N区域的微生物丰富度和群落组成存在显著差异。盐度、温度、pH值、铵态氮和总有机碳是显著影响微生物群落变化的关键因素。此外，细菌共现网络显示出比真菌共现网络更复杂的相互作用，但模块化程度更低。本研究为北极海洋沉积物中细菌、古菌和真菌的空间分布模式提供了重要见解，对于更好地理解微生物的全球分布和生态功能至关重要。
