DMSP-Producing Bacteria Are More Abundant in the Surface Microlayer than Subsurface Seawater of the East China Sea

Sun, Hao; Zhang, Yunhui; Tan, Siyin; Zheng, Yanfen; Zhou, Shun; Ma, Qian‐Yao; Yang, Gui‐Peng; Todd, Jonathan D.; Zhang, Xiaohua

doi:10.1007/s00248-020-01507-8

Cited by 32 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…Indeed, similar metagenomics studies with greater sequencing depth (eight-fold) on surface seawater did detect DSYB and TpMMT [53]. It is also noteworthy that qPCR data on other ECS samples [57] demonstrated that DMSP-producing bacteria with dsyB were also present in the >3 µm seawater samples, indicating that larger bacteria or bacteria tightly associated to phytoplankton may also be contributing to the DMSP levels detected in this fraction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

Bacterial Dimethylsulfoniopropionate Biosynthesis in the East China Sea

et al. 2021

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Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) is one of Earth’s most abundant organosulfur molecules. Recently, many marine heterotrophic bacteria were shown to produce DMSP, but few studies have combined culture-dependent and independent techniques to study their abundance, distribution, diversity and activity in seawater or sediment environments. Here we investigate bacterial DMSP production potential in East China Sea (ECS) samples. Total DMSP (DMSPt) concentration in ECS seawater was highest in surface waters (SW) where phytoplankton were most abundant, and it decreased with depth to near bottom waters. However, the percentage of DMSPt mainly apportioned to bacteria increased from the surface to the near bottom water. The highest DMSP concentration was detected in ECS oxic surface sediment (OSS) where phytoplankton were not abundant. Bacteria with the genetic potential to produce DMSP and relevant biosynthesis gene transcripts were prominent in all ECS seawater and sediment samples. Their abundance also increased with depth and was highest in the OSS samples. Microbial enrichments for DMSP-producing bacteria from sediment and seawater identified many novel taxonomic groups of DMSP-producing bacteria. Different profiles of DMSP-producing bacteria existed between seawater and sediment samples and there are still novel DMSP-producing bacterial groups to be discovered in these environments. This study shows that heterotrophic bacteria significantly contribute to the marine DMSP pool and that their contribution increases with water depth and is highest in seabed surface sediment where DMSP catabolic potential is lowest. Furthermore, distinct bacterial groups likely produce DMSP in seawater and sediment samples, and many novel producing taxa exist, especially in the sediment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

Bacterial Dimethylsulfoniopropionate Biosynthesis in the East China Sea

et al. 2021

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“…2013; Teeling, et al . 2012), which are known to be dominant in the SML (Sun, et al . 2020) and on transparent exopolymer particles (Zäncker, et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Labile organic matter particularly selects for fast-growing, opportunistic, and active bacteria in foams such as Gammaproteobacteria (Landa, et al 2013;Teeling, et al 2012), which are known to be dominant in the SML (Sun, et al 2020) and on transparent exopolymer particles (Zäncker, et al 2019). For instance, Alteromonas sp., of which we found an OTU among the free-living bacteria present in Trichodesmium foam ( Supplementary Table 4), were previously shown to be highly abundant and active degraders of alginate, a cell wall component from marine macroalgae (Mitulla, et al 2016), and of labile dissolved organic carbon (Pedler, et al 2014).…”

Section: Gammaproteobacteriamentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea foams are ephemeral hotspots for distinctive bacterial communities contrasting sea-surface microlayer and underlying surface water

Rahlff

Stolle

Giebel

et al. 2019

Preprint

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The occurrence of foams at oceans’ surfaces is patchy and generally short-lived. However, a detailed understanding of bacterial communities inhabiting foams is lacking. In this study, we investigate if marine foams differ from the sea-surface microlayer (SML), a <1 mm thick layer at the air-sea interface. The comparison of marine foams, SML and underlying water collected from the North Sea and Timor Sea showed that foams were often characterized by highest abundance of small phototrophic and prokaryotic cells as well as highest concentrations of surface-active substances (SAS). Amplicon sequencing based on 16S rRNA revealed a comparable bacterial community in SML and foam. DNA and rRNA based sequence data suggest that Pseudoalteromonas, a typical member of the SML, was highly active and thus might enhance foam formation and stability by producing SAS. Although foams contained some specific taxa, our study supports the hypothesis that foam represents a compressed version of the SML. Foam is characterized by increased cell numbers, high SAS concentration, and a significant fraction of overlapping bacteria with SML. Due to the compressed nature of foam and SML compared to the underlying water, bacteria thriving in both surface phenomena have likely implications for biogeochemical cycling and air-sea exchange processes.One-sentence summaryWhile foams at the oceans’ surface have a unique bacterial community signature, they represent a compressed version of the sea-surface microlayer with typical bacterial inhabitants.

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“…Thalassospira and Novosphingobium are typical DMSP-producing genera with mmtN ( Williams et al, 2019 ). With the exception of TpMMT, which has only been studied in T. pseudonana , the other S -methyltransferase genes in algae and bacteria serve as reliable reporters for DMSP synthesis in diverse marine environments ( Curson et al, 2017 ; Kageyama et al, 2018 ; Williams et al, 2019 ; Sun et al, 2020 ; Zheng et al, 2020 ). Approximately 0.35% of marine bacteria contain dsyB and are predicted to make DMSP, whereas mmtN is far less abundant ( Williams et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Phytoplankton, such as dinoflagellates, haptophytes, and green algae that contain the highest intracellular DMSP levels ( Keller et al, 1989 ; Curson et al, 2018 ), are believed to be the main oceanic DMSP producers ( Zhang et al, 2019 ). However, recent studies analyzing the prevalence key algal and bacterial DMSP synthesis genes in environmental samples suggest that bacteria also significantly contribute to marine DMSP production ( Williams et al, 2019 ; Song et al, 2020 ; Sun et al, 2020 ; Zheng et al, 2020 ; Liu et al, 2021 ), especially in aphotic and deep seawater and surface marine sediments where phytoplankton are scarce.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dimethylsulfoniopropionate Biosynthetic Bacteria in the Subseafloor Sediments of the South China Sea

Zhang

Sun

et al. 2021

Front. Microbiol.

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Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) is one of Earth’s most abundant organosulfur molecules, and bacteria in marine sediments have been considered significant producers. However, the vertical profiles of DMSP content and DMSP-producing bacteria in subseafloor sediment have not been described. Here, we used culture-dependent and -independent methods to investigate microbial DMSP production and cycling potential in South China Sea (SCS) sediment. The DMSP content of SCS sediment decreased from 11.25 to 20.90 nmol g–1 in the surface to 0.56–2.08 nmol g–1 in the bottom layers of 8-m-deep subseafloor sediment cores (n = 10). Very few eukaryotic plastid sequences were detected in the sediment, supporting bacteria and not algae as important sediment DMSP producers. Known bacterial DMSP biosynthesis genes (dsyB and mmtN) were only predicted to be in 0.0007–0.0195% of sediment bacteria, but novel DMSP-producing isolates with potentially unknown DMSP synthesis genes and/or pathways were identified in these sediments, including Marinobacter (Gammaproteobacteria) and Erythrobacter (Alphaproteobacteria) sp. The abundance of bacteria with the potential to produce DMSP decreased with sediment depth and was extremely low at 690 cm. Furthermore, distinct DMSP-producing bacterial groups existed in surface and subseafloor sediment samples, and their abundance increased when samples were incubated under conditions known to enrich for DMSP-producing bacteria. Bacterial DMSP catabolic genes were also most abundant in the surface oxic sediments with high DMSP concentrations. This study extends the current knowledge of bacterial DMSP biosynthesis in marine sediments and implies that DMSP biosynthesis is not only confined to the surface oxic sediment zones. It highlights the importance of future work to uncover the DMSP biosynthesis genes/pathways in novel DMSP-producing bacteria.

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DMSP-Producing Bacteria Are More Abundant in the Surface Microlayer than Subsurface Seawater of the East China Sea

Cited by 32 publications

References 90 publications

Bacterial Dimethylsulfoniopropionate Biosynthesis in the East China Sea

Bacterial Dimethylsulfoniopropionate Biosynthesis in the East China Sea

Sea foams are ephemeral hotspots for distinctive bacterial communities contrasting sea-surface microlayer and underlying surface water

Dimethylsulfoniopropionate Biosynthetic Bacteria in the Subseafloor Sediments of the South China Sea

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