Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments

Taxonomic Diversity Of Microbial Communities In Sub-seafloor Hydrothermal Sediments Of The Active Santorini-Kolumbo Volcanic Field

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

Frontiers

November 22, 2023

Filed under Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi, Crenarchaeota, extremeophile, Firmicutes, genomics, hydrothermal, microbiology, Proteobacteria, Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field, taxonomy

Taxonomic Diversity Of Microbial Communities In Sub-seafloor Hydrothermal Sediments Of The Active Santorini-Kolumbo Volcanic Field — Occurrence of the major 100 OTUs clusters at 3% cutoff level (Supplementary Table 6). Cluster analysis was based on Spearman rank correlation. Color intensity signifies abundance ranging from orange (low abundance), to light blue (medium abundance) and to red (high abundance). Four clusters were formed: K1 and K2 (Kolumbo crater samples), S1 and S2 (Santorini caldera samples). — Frontiers

Introduction: Active hydrothermal vents of volcanic origin provide a remarkable manifestation of life on Earth under extreme conditions, which may have consequences for our understanding of habitability on other terrestrial bodies as well.

Methods: Here, we performed for the first time Illumina sequencing of bacterial and archaeal communities on sub-seafloor samples collected from the Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field. A total of 19 (3-m long) gravity corers were collected and processed for microbial community analysis.

Results: From a total of 6,46,671 produced V4 sequences for all samples, a total of 10,496 different Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) were identified that were assigned to 40 bacterial and 9 archaeal phyla and 14 candidate divisions. On average, the most abundant phyla in all samples were Chloroflexi (Chloroflexota) (24.62%), followed by Proteobacteria (Pseudomonadota) (11.29%), Firmicutes (Bacillota) (10.73%), Crenarchaeota (Thermoproteota) (8.55%), and Acidobacteria (Acidobacteriota) (8.07%). At the genus level, a total of 286 known genera and candidate genera were mostly dominated by members of Bacillus, Thermoflexus, Desulfatiglans, Pseudoalteromonas, and Pseudomonas.

Detailed bathymetry maps showing the locations of gravity coring stations during POS510 expedition in (A) Santorini caldera and (B) Kolumbo volcano. Top 100 cm of two representative gravity corers of (C) Santorini caldera: 20GC and (D) Kolumbo volcano: 92GC. Values of pH and Eh of the different layers are also shown. — Frontiers.

Taxonomic diversity of microbial communities in sub-seafloor hydrothermal sediments of the active Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field, Frontiers (open access)

Astrobiology

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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