Vertical distribution of archaeal communities in cold seep sediments from the jiulong methane reef area in the south China sea

Abstract

Jiulong methane reef, a large cold seep area on the continental slope of the South China Sea (SCS), was characterized by chemosynthetic fauna, bacterial mats, methane-derived carbonate structures, and a shallow depth of sulfate-methane transition zone (SMTZ) in gravity cores. To characterize the microbial diversity and variation in correlation to methane venting in the cold seep area, the archaeal community in sediments of the gravity Core CL11 was analyzed, using the Illumina MiSeq sequencing system. A total of 96,917 valid sequences were obtained and classified into 275 OTUs. Taxonomic analysis showed that all the archaeal sequences belonged to the phyla of Crenarchaeota (69.41%) and Eurarchaeota (25.26%). Vertical distribution of the archaeal communities showed that the Marine Benthic Group B (MBG-B) was the predominant group (58.92%) in the topmost sediment of the core, while percentages of the South African Gold Mine Euryarchaeotal Group (SAGMEG) sequences increased with depth. Our findings indicate that the archaeal community in the cold seep of Jiulong Methane Reef is unique and provides us new insights into the archaeal community composition of the cold seep area.

Biogeographic distributions of microbial communities associated with anaerobic methane oxidation in the surface sediments of deep-sea cold seeps in the South China Sea

“…The detection of ANME-2d clades Methanoperedens in the cold seeps indicated that the DAMO-related microbes existed in the hydrate-bearing cold seeps (Haroon et al, 2013), although their real ecological role in this process still need direct proofs. Different ANME clades had varied spatial distribution, for example, ANME-3 predominant in this study, while ANME-1 and ANME-1b predominant in the respective of Jiulong methane reef area (Cui et al, 2016) and the GMGS2 drilling area of the SCS (Cui et al, 2019). This reflected the complexity and heterogeneity of the microbial communities in different cold seeps, and the necessity of conducting specific studies on each individual seep.…”

Bacterial Abundance, Diversity and Activity During Long-Term Colonization of Non-biodegradable and Biodegradable Plastics in Seawater

“…and Marinobacter sp. These two genera have never been listed as PCL degraders, but the first was found highly abundant after crude oil pollution ( Valencia-Agami et al, 2019 ; Peng et al, 2020 ) and the second contains well-known hydrocarbonoclastic species ( Grimaud et al, 2012 ; Cui et al, 2016 ), which is consistent with the petroleum nature of the polymer. Another contributing OTU was affiliated with Flavobacteriaceae that were already shown as potential PCL degraders ( Lopardo and Urakawa, 2019 ) or capable of using complex carbon sources ( Rodriguez-Sanchez et al, 2016 ).…”

Riddles of Lost City: Chemotrophic Prokaryotes Drives Carbon, Sulfur, and Nitrogen Cycling at an Extinct Cold Seep, South China Sea

“…In ancient methane seep reefs, for example the Jiulong methane reef at South Chia Sea (SCS) and the Crimea peninsula at Black Sea, anaerobic methanotrophs (ANME) affiliated with Euryarchaea and sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) belonging to Deltaproteobacteria are identified with high abundance, who are actively mediating anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) coupled sulfate reduction (SR) ( 16 , 18 ). Other to these taxa, Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Planctomycetes, Chloroflexi, and Bacteroidetes are also abundant in extinct seeps ( 13 , 19 ), suggesting a mix nutrition approach pattern for extinct seep prokaryotes. However, we cannot get more information regarding extinct seep prokaryotes from the current studies.…”