Spatial distribution of viruses associated with planktonic and attached microbial communities in hydrothermal environments - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2012 Mar;78(5):1311-20.

doi: 10.1128/AEM.06491-11. Epub 2011 Dec 30.

Takuro Nunoura, Hiromi Kazama, Takuroh Noguchi, Kazuhiro Inoue, Hironori Akashi, Toshiro Yamanaka, Tomohiro Toki, Masahiro Yamamoto, Yasuo Furushima, Yuichiro Ueno, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, Ken Takai

Affiliations

Spatial distribution of viruses associated with planktonic and attached microbial communities in hydrothermal environments

Yukari Yoshida-Takashima et al. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2012 Mar.

Abstract

Viruses play important roles in marine surface ecosystems, but little is known about viral ecology and virus-mediated processes in deep-sea hydrothermal microbial communities. In this study, we examined virus-like particle (VLP) abundances in planktonic and attached microbial communities, which occur in physical and chemical gradients in both deep and shallow submarine hydrothermal environments (mixing waters between hydrothermal fluids and ambient seawater and dense microbial communities attached to chimney surface areas or macrofaunal bodies and colonies). We found that viruses were widely distributed in a variety of hydrothermal microbial habitats, with the exception of the interior parts of hydrothermal chimney structures. The VLP abundance and VLP-to-prokaryote ratio (VPR) in the planktonic habitats increased as the ratio of hydrothermal fluid to mixing water increased. On the other hand, the VLP abundance in attached microbial communities was significantly and positively correlated with the whole prokaryotic abundance; however, the VPRs were always much lower than those for the surrounding hydrothermal waters. This is the first report to show VLP abundance in the attached microbial communities of submarine hydrothermal environments, which presented VPR values significantly lower than those in planktonic microbial communities reported before. These results suggested that viral lifestyles (e.g., lysogenic prevalence) and virus interactions with prokaryotes are significantly different among the planktonic and attached microbial communities that are developing in the submarine hydrothermal environments.

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Figures

Fig 1

Fig 1

Location of the deep-sea hydrothermal field of the Hatoma Knoll and the shallow submarine hydrothermal vent field off Taketomi Island.

Fig 2

Fig 2

Microbial community structures based on the archaeal (A) and bacterial (B) 16S rRNA gene clone sequences of the Hatoma Knoll (upper) and the Taketomi (lower) hydrothermal systems. The numbers on the right of each row show the sequenced numbers. ND, not determined; DSAG, deep-sea archaeal group; MCG, miscellaneous crenarchaeotic group. In the macrofaunal colony waters of the Hatoma Knoll field, the MGI subgroups (alpha, gamma, and delta) are shown using Greek letters.

Fig 3

Fig 3

Cluster analysis of clone libraries. The trees were created with Jackknife environment clusters analysis in the UniFrac program. Jackknife with 100 permutations was performed. Jackknife values over 50 are given at corresponding branches. Comparison of archaeal (A) and bacterial (B) 16S rRNA gene clone libraries from the Hatoma Knoll (upper) and the Taketomi (lower) hydrothermal systems.

Fig 4

Fig 4

The relationship between the prokaryotic and VLP abundances in the Hatoma Knoll and Taketomi hydrothermal systems was assessed using model II (reduced major axis) regression. Only the reduced major axis regression of the attached habitats was shown: y = a (x) + b, where x is the log10-transformed prokaryotic abundance, y is the log10-transformed VLP abundance, a is 1.19 ± 0.15, and b is −2.65 ± 1.17 (_r_2 = 0.83, n = 13).

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