Fine-scale vertical distribution of bacteria in the East Pacific deep-sea sediments determined via 16S rRNA gene T-RFLP and clone library analyses

Marine bacteria as source of antimicrobial compounds

The marine environment encompasses a huge biological diversity and can be considered as an underexplored location for prospecting bioactive molecules. In this review, the current state of art about antimicrobial molecules from marine bacteria has been summarized considering the main phylum and sources evolved in a marine environment. Considering the last two decades, we have found as most studied group of bacteria producers of substances with antimicrobial activity is the Firmicutes phylum, in particular strains of the Bacillus genus. The reason for that can be attributed to the difficult cultivation of typical Actinobacteria from a marine sediment, whose members are the major producers of antimicrobial substances in land environments. However, a reversed trend has been observed in recent years with an increasing number of reports settling on Actinobacteria. Great diversity of chemical structures have been identified, such as fijimicyns and lynamicyns from Actinomycetes and macrolactins produced by Bacillus.

Bacterial Diversity and the Geochemical Landscape in the Southwestern Gulf of Mexico

Marine sediments are an example of one of the most complex microbial habitats. These bacterial communities play an important role in several biogeochemical cycles in the marine ecosystem. In particular, the Gulf of Mexico has a ubiquitous concentration of hydrocarbons in its sediments, representing a very interesting niche to explore. Additionally, the Mexican government has opened its oil industry, offering several exploration and production blocks in shallow and deep water in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico (swGoM), from which there are no public results of conducted studies. Given the higher risk of large-scale oil spills, the design of contingency plans and mitigation activities before oil exploitation is of growing concern. Therefore, a bacterial taxonomic baseline profile is crucial to understanding the impact of any eventual oil spill. Here, we show a genus level taxonomic profile to elucidate the bacterial baseline, pointing out richness and relative abundance, as well as relationships with 79 abiotic parameters, in an area encompassing ∼150,000 km2, including a region where the exploitation of new oil wells has already been authorized. Our results describe for the first time the bacterial landscape of the swGoM, establishing a bacterial baseline "core" of 450 genera for marine sediments in this region. We can also differentiate bacterial populations from shallow and deep zones of the swGoM based on their community structure. Shallow sediments have been chronically exposed to aromatic hydrocarbons, unlike deep zones. Our results reveal that the bacterial community structure is particularly enriched with hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria in the shallow zone, where a greater aromatic hydrocarbon concentration was determined. Differences in the bacterial communities in the swGoM were also observed through a comprehensive comparative analysis relative to various marine sediment sequencing projects, including sampled sites from the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. This study in the swGoM provides clues to the bacterial population adaptation to the ubiquitous presence of hydrocarbons and reveals organisms such as Thioprofundum bacteria with potential applications in ecological surveillance. This resource will allow us to differentiate between natural conditions and alterations generated by oil extraction activities, which, in turn, enables us to assess the environmental impact of such activities.

Diversity and Biogeography of Bathyal and Abyssal Seafloor Bacteria

The deep ocean floor covers more than 60% of the Earth's surface, and hosts diverse bacterial communities with important functions in carbon and nutrient cycles. The identification of key bacterial members remains a challenge and their patterns of distribution in seafloor sediment yet remain poorly described. Previous studies were either regionally restricted or included few deep-sea sediments, and did not specifically test biogeographic patterns across the vast oligotrophic bathyal and abyssal seafloor. Here we define the composition of this deep seafloor microbiome by describing those bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTU) that are specifically associated with deep-sea surface sediments at water depths ranging from 1000-5300 m. We show that the microbiome of the surface seafloor is distinct from the subsurface seafloor. The cosmopolitan bacterial OTU were affiliated with the clades JTB255 (class Gammaproteobacteria, order Xanthomonadales) and OM1 (Actinobacteria, order Acidimicrobiales), comprising 21% and 7% of their respective clades, and about 1% of all sequences in the study. Overall, few sequence-abundant bacterial types were globally dispersed and displayed positive range-abundance relationships. Most bacterial populations were rare and exhibited a high degree of endemism, explaining the substantial differences in community composition observed over large spatial scales. Despite the relative physicochemical uniformity of deep-sea sediments, we identified indicators of productivity regimes, especially sediment organic matter content, as factors significantly associated with changes in bacterial community structure across the globe.

Composition and variation of sediment bacterial and nirS-harboring bacterial communities at representative sites of the Bohai Gulf coastal zone, China

With rapid urbanization, anthropogenic activities are increasingly influencing the natural environment of the Bohai Bay. In this study, the composition and variation of bacterial and nirS-harboring bacterial communities in the coastal zone sediments of the Bohai Gulf were analyzed using PCR-based clone libraries. A total of 95 genera were detected in the bacterial communities, with Proteobacteria (72.1 %), Acidobacteria (10.5 %), Firmicutes (1.7 %), Bacteroidetes (1.4 %), Chloroflexi (0.7 %) and Planctomycetes (0.7 %) being the dominated phyla. The NirS sequences were divided into nine Clusters (A-I). Canonical correlation analysis showed that the bacterial or denitrifying communities were correlated with different environmental factors, such as total organic carbon, total nitrogen, ammonium, sulfate, etc. Furthermore, bacterial communities' composition and diversity are influenced by oil exploration, sewage discharge and other anthropogenic activities in the coastal area of the Bohai Sea. Thus, this study provided useful information on further research on regional or global environmental control and restore.

Patterns and drivers of bacterial α- and β-diversity across vertical profiles from surface to subsurface sediments

We investigated the patterns and drivers of bacterial α- and β-diversity, along with viral and prokaryotic abundance and the carbon production rates, in marine surface and subsurface sediments (down to 1 m depth) in two habitats: vegetated sediments (seagrass meadow) and non-vegetated sediments. Prokaryotic abundance and production decreased with depth in the sediment, but cell-specific production rates and the virus-to-prokaryote ratio increased, highlighting unexpectedly high activity in the subsurface. The highest diversity was observed in vegetated sediments. Bacterial β-diversity between sediment horizons was high, and only a minor number of taxa was shared between surface and subsurface layers. Viruses significantly contributed to explain α- and β-diversity patterns. Despite potential limitations due to the only use of fingerprinting techniques, this study indicates that the coastal subsurface host highly active and diversified bacterial assemblages, that subsurface cells are more active than expected and that viruses promote β-diversity and stimulate bacterial metabolism in subsurface layers. The limited number of taxa shared between habitats, and between surface and subsurface sediment horizons, suggests that future investigations of the shallow subsurface will provide insights into the census of bacterial diversity, and the comprehension of the patterns and drivers of prokaryotic diversity in marine ecosystems.

Evaluation of bacterial diversity in Palk Bay sediments using terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphisms (T-RFLP)

Although it is known that Palk Bay sediments harbor diverse and novel bacteria with important ecological and environmental functions, a comprehensive view of their molecular diversity is still lacking. In the present study, bacterial diversity in Palk Bay sediments was characterized using the molecular method terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphisms (T-RFLP). The bacterial assemblages detected by T-RFLP analysis revealed that the nearshore sediment harbored high number of bacterial count, whereas the 2.5-m sediment harbored diverse and distinct bacterial composition with fine heterogeneity. The major bacterial groups detected in all the three sediment samples were Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria (including alpha (α), gamma (γ), delta (δ), and epsilon (ε)-Proteobacteria), and uncultured bacteria. This is the first study that reveals the presence of Bacteroidetes, delta (δ)- and epsilon (ε)-Proteobacteria, and uncultured bacteria in Palk Bay sediments. The hitherto unexplored wide microbial diversity of Palk Bay coastal area was unraveled in the current study through culture-independent approach. These data suggest that the continued use of cultivation-independent techniques will undoubtedly lead to the discovery of additional bacterial diversity and provide a direct means to learn more about the ecophysiology and biotechnological potential of Palk Bay coastal area.

Quinone profiles of microbial communities in sediments of Haihe River-Bohai Bay as influenced by heavy metals and environmental factors

A total of 11 sediment samples were collected from the sites along Haihe River-Bohai Bay, with site 1 at the beginning of Haihe River and site 11 in Bohai Bay, about 150 km away from site 1. Quinone profiles were used for the analysis of microbial community as influenced by pollutants in water and sediments, such as heavy metals, and other environmental factors. Nineteen species of quinones were found at site 1 while only six species at sites 10 and 11. Both the diversity of quinone species (DQ) and the number of quinones were higher in the sediments from Haihe River and the near-sea area of Bohai Bay than in those from the deep-sea area. The β diversity values were significantly higher, while Jaccard indexes of similarity were much lower among non-contiguous pairs of sites as compared with the contiguous ones. Cluster analysis indicated that quinone profiles may be grouped into two main clusters (sites 1-7 and sites 8-11), and there were higher similarities within the groups than between groups. Quinone species composition varied at different sites. Ubiquinones such as UQ-8, UQ-9, and UQ-10 and menaquinones such as MK-6, MK-7, MK-8 were isolated from all the sites and accounted for the largest proportions. Pearson correlation analysis revealed that both the number of quinone species and DQ correlated positively with total organic carbon contents in water and sediments, but negatively correlated with salinity and electroconductivity and did not correlate significantly with heavy metal contents in water.

Bacterial diversity in Fe-rich hydrothermal sediments at two South Tonga Arc submarine volcanoes

Seafloor iron oxide deposits are a common feature of submarine hydrothermal systems. Morphological study of these deposits has led investigators to suggest a microbiological role in their formation, through the oxidation of reduced Fe in hydrothermal fluids. Fe-oxidizing bacteria, including the recently described Zetaproteobacteria, have been isolated from a few of these deposits but generally little is known about the microbial diversity associated with this habitat. In this study, we characterized bacterial diversity in two Fe oxide samples collected on the seafloor of Volcanoes 1 and 19 on the South Tonga Arc. We were particularly interested in confirming the presence of Zetaproteobacteria at these two sites and in documenting the diversity of groups other than Fe oxidizers. Our results (small subunit rRNA gene sequence data) showed a surprisingly high bacterial diversity, with 150 operational taxonomic units belonging to 19 distinct taxonomic groups. Both samples were dominated by Zetaproteobacteria Fe oxidizers. This group was most abundant at Volcano 1, where sediments were richer in Fe and contained more crystalline forms of Fe oxides. Other groups of bacteria found at these two sites include known S- and a few N-metabolizing bacteria, all ubiquitous in marine environments. The low similarity of our clones with the GenBank database suggests that new species and perhaps new families were recovered. The results of this study suggest that Fe-rich hydrothermal sediments, while dominated by Fe oxidizers, can be exploited by a variety of autotrophic and heterotrophic micro-organisms.

Assessing the effects of acetochlor on soil fungal communities by DGGE and clone library analysis

We assessed the potential eco-toxicological risks of the herbicide acetochlor on fungal communities in the microcosm of black soil using 28S rRNA gene-PCR-DGGE and clone library analysis. The acetochlor was applied to black soil at four concentrations (0-control, 50, 150, and 250 mg/kg). The DGGE fingerprint patterns indicated that acetochlor stimulated fungal communities at day 7 after application, after which there was a suppression effect. The fungal communities in acetochlor-treated soil gradually became more like that of the control during the 60-day experimental period. Diversity indices in the 50 and 150 mg/kg acetochlor treatments changed more rapidly than in the 250 mg/kg acetochlor treatment. The cluster analysis indicated a significant change in fungal community structure after application of acetochlor. The impacts were markedly greater in the 150 and 250 mg/kg acetochlor treatments compared with the 50 mg/kg acetochlor treatment. Sequencing of clones showed that acetochlor application resulted in an increase in pathogenic and non-cultivatable fungal populations, which could increase the risk of plant disease outbreaks.