Location
University of Nevada Las Vegas, Science and Education Building
Start Date
9-8-2011 10:15 AM
End Date
9-8-2011 12:00 PM
Description
Great Boiling Spring (GBS) is a large, circumneutral, long residence time geothermal spring in the US Great Basin. Twelve samples were taken from four different sediment sites and the planktonic community in the bulk water of GBS on up to four different dates. Microbial community composition and diversity was assessed by using a barcoded, improved universal primer set targeting the V8 portion of the 16S rRNA gene and PCR. Over 200,000 products were sequenced using the Roche 454 GS FLX Titanium System. Sediment and planktonic microbial communities were distinct with very little overlap, regardless of the sampling location or temperature. Planktonic communities were extremely uneven and were dominated by a single phylotype related to Thermocrinis in the Aquificales. Benthic microbial communities grouped according to temperature and sampling location. Two locations, Site A (80-87°C) and Site B (79°C), were predominantly composed of the crenarchaeal class Thermoprotei, the novel archaeal lineage pSL4, and the novel bacterial lineage GAL35. Populations of the ammonia oxidizing archaeon “Candidatus Nitrosocaldus yellowstonii” comprised 5-15% of all samples when Site A was cooler than normal (80°C) and at cooler sites throughout the spring (76-62°C). At cooler temperature sites (76-62°C), the phylum-level diversity and evenness were significantly higher, and bacteria made up a significantly higher percentage of the population. To our knowledge, this is the most detailed study of the spatial and temporal variation in any geothermal spring. The study underscores the distinctness of planktonic and benthic communities and the importance of temperature in driving the spatial variation of microbial phylotypes throughout the mineralogically homogenous source pool. 87
Keywords
Hot springs; Microorganisms; Nevada – Great Boiling Spring; Thermophilic microorganisms
Disciplines
Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology | Life Sciences | Microbiology | Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Language
English
Included in
Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Commons, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons
A Spatial and temporal analysis of microbial communities in Great Boiling Spring, Nevada, U.S.A.
University of Nevada Las Vegas, Science and Education Building
Great Boiling Spring (GBS) is a large, circumneutral, long residence time geothermal spring in the US Great Basin. Twelve samples were taken from four different sediment sites and the planktonic community in the bulk water of GBS on up to four different dates. Microbial community composition and diversity was assessed by using a barcoded, improved universal primer set targeting the V8 portion of the 16S rRNA gene and PCR. Over 200,000 products were sequenced using the Roche 454 GS FLX Titanium System. Sediment and planktonic microbial communities were distinct with very little overlap, regardless of the sampling location or temperature. Planktonic communities were extremely uneven and were dominated by a single phylotype related to Thermocrinis in the Aquificales. Benthic microbial communities grouped according to temperature and sampling location. Two locations, Site A (80-87°C) and Site B (79°C), were predominantly composed of the crenarchaeal class Thermoprotei, the novel archaeal lineage pSL4, and the novel bacterial lineage GAL35. Populations of the ammonia oxidizing archaeon “Candidatus Nitrosocaldus yellowstonii” comprised 5-15% of all samples when Site A was cooler than normal (80°C) and at cooler sites throughout the spring (76-62°C). At cooler temperature sites (76-62°C), the phylum-level diversity and evenness were significantly higher, and bacteria made up a significantly higher percentage of the population. To our knowledge, this is the most detailed study of the spatial and temporal variation in any geothermal spring. The study underscores the distinctness of planktonic and benthic communities and the importance of temperature in driving the spatial variation of microbial phylotypes throughout the mineralogically homogenous source pool. 87
Comments
Research sponsored by:DOE grant #JGI CSP-182, and NSF grants # MCB Q546865, # OISE 0968421 and # REU 1005223