Distribution and activity of Bacteria and Archaea in the deep water masses of the North Atlantic

By E. Teira, Philippe Lebaron, H. V. van Aken, G. Herndl. 2006

124 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We determined the distribution and activity of the major prokaryotic groups (Bacteria, Cren‐, and Euryarchaeota) inhabiting the deep water masses of the North Atlantic by following the path of the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) from its formation in the Greenland‐Iceland‐Norwegian (GIN) Sea along its two major branches covering approximately the first 50 yr of the NADW in the oceanic conveyor belt system. The relative abundance of Eury‐ and Crenarchaeota, assessed by catalyzed reporter deposition‐fluorescence in situ hybridization (CARD‐FISH), was significantly higher in the western branch (17% and 24% of 49,69‐diamidino‐2‐ phenylindole (DAPI)‐stained cells, respectively) than in the eastern (9% and 17%, respectively) branch of the NADW. In contrast, the relative abundance of Bacteria (30% of DAPI‐stained cells) did not differ between the western and the eastern basin. Prokaryotic production and turnover rates, however, were higher in the western than the eastern basin. Generally, the contribution of Euryarchaeota to total picoplankton was correlated positively with oxygen concentrations ( p < 0.001) and negatively with salinity ( p < 0.001) and temperature ( p < 0.001). The contribution of Crenarchaeota to total picoplankton correlated positively with oxygen ( p < 0.05) and negatively with salinity ( p < 0.001). There was a positive correlation between the crenarchaeotal contribution to picoplankton and nitrite concentration ( p < 0.001), especially in the oxygen minimum layer, suggesting their potential involvement in the marine nitrogen cycle as nitrifiers. The observed variability in archaeal abundance in relation to bulk prokaryotic activity supports the emerging notion that Archaea are a highly dynamic and metabolically active component of the deep ocean prokaryotic community.

Subfields: Ecology, Environmental Chemistry, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/07321a18beb767ee5c060c0a594fe865ca1db7de

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

In Environmental Chemistry

In Oceanography

Citations in the corpus

Emerging concepts on microbial processes in the bathypelagic ocean-ecology, biogeochemistry, and genomics (2010, background): “…et al., 2000; Hansell and Ducklow, 2003; Reinthaler et al., 2006), their community structures (Karner et al., 2001; Sogin et al., 2006), food web interactions (Fukuda et al., 2007; Parada et al., 2007), and metabolic activities (Herndl et al., 2005; Teira et al., 2006a,b) in bathypelagic waters.”
Microbial oceanography of the dark ocean's pelagic realm (2009, methodology): “The heterotrophic life mode of bathypelagic Crenarchaea is further supported by the fact that archaeal amoA copy numbers, here indicative for an autotrophic life mode, decrease in the bathypelagic North Atlantic, particularly in the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), from north to south following the”
Major gradients in putatively nitrifying and non-nitrifying Archaea in the deep North Atlantic (2009, unknown): “The distribution of the copy numbers of the 16S rRNA genes (MCGI and pSL12-clade) obtained by Q-PCR corresponds to the distribution pattern of Crenarchaeota with depths reported previously using fluorescent in situ hybridization 7,8,20,21 .”
Latitudinal patterns in the abundance of major marine bacterioplankton groups (2010, background): “…indicated that the composition of bacterioplankton differs between oceanic regions, probably related to oceanographic factors such as water temperature (Baldwin et al. 2005, Fuhrman et al. 2008), nutrient availability (Abell & Bowman 2005), or water masses (Teira et al. 2006, Galand et al. 2010).”
Mesopelagic zone ecology and biogeochemistry - a synthesis (2010, background): “thermohaline circulation, is accompanied by structural and functional changes in the prokaryotic community, likely reflecting changes in the quality and quantity of dissolved organic material (Teira et al., 2006).”
Major contribution of autotrophy to microbial carbon cycling in the deep North Atlantic’s interior (2010, background): “While commonly the microbial community of the oxygenated water column of the dark ocean is considered to be heterotrophic, as shown for Archaea and Bacteria taking up amino acids (Ouverney and Fuhrman, 2000; Teira et al., 2006), DI(14)C fixation might be more common than hitherto assumed, particular”
The biomass distribution on Earth (2018, result): “Similar findings were found using FISH in the Atlantic Ocean (52, 53).”