Publication
Title
Impacts of chemical gradients on microbial community structure
Author
Abstract
Succession of redox processes is sometimes assumed to define a basic microbial community structure for ecosystems with oxygen gradients. In this paradigm, aerobic respiration, denitrification, fermentation and sulfate reduction proceed in a thermodynamically determined order, known as the ` redox tower'. Here, we investigated whether redox sorting of microbial processes explains microbial community structure at low-oxygen concentrations. We subjected a diverse microbial community sampled from a coastal marine sediment to 100 days of tidal cycling in a laboratory chemostat. Oxygen gradients (both in space and time) led to the assembly of a microbial community dominated by populations that each performed aerobic and anaerobic metabolism in parallel. This was shown by metagenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and stable isotope incubations. Effective oxygen consumption combined with the formation of microaggregates sustained the activity of oxygensensitive anaerobic enzymes, leading to braiding of unsorted redox processes, within and between populations. Analyses of available metagenomic data sets indicated that the same ecological strategies might also be successful in some natural ecosystems.
Language
English
Source (journal)
The ISME journal : multidisciplinary journal of microbial ecology. - London
Publication
London : Nature publishing group , 2017
ISSN
1751-7362
DOI
10.1038/ISMEJ.2016.175
Volume/pages
11 :4 (2017) , p. 920-931
ISI
000397281200010
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
SEDBIOGEOCHEM 2.0: Hardwiring the ocean floor: the impact of microbial electrical circuitry on biogeochemical cycling in marine sediments
Publication type
Subject
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 08.10.2018
Last edited 23.01.2023
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