Metagenomic profiles of archaea and bacteria within thermal and geochemical gradients of the Guaymas Basin deep subsurface

Paraskevi Mara, David Geller-McGrath, Virginia Edgcomb, David Beaudoin, Yuki Morono and Andreas Teske ()
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Paraskevi Mara: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
David Geller-McGrath: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Virginia Edgcomb: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
David Beaudoin: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Yuki Morono: Institute for Extra-cutting-edge Science and Technology Avantgarde Research (X-STAR), Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Monobe
Andreas Teske: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Previous studies of microbial communities in subseafloor sediments reported that microbial abundance and diversity decrease with sediment depth and age, and microbes dominating at depth tend to be a subset of the local seafloor community. However, the existence of geographically widespread, subsurface-adapted specialists is also possible. Here, we use metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses of the hydrothermally heated, sediment layers of Guaymas Basin (Gulf of California, Mexico) to examine the distribution and activity patterns of bacteria and archaea along thermal, geochemical and cell count gradients. We find that the composition and distribution of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), dominated by numerous lineages of Chloroflexota and Thermoproteota, correlate with biogeochemical parameters as long as temperatures remain moderate, but downcore increasing temperatures beyond ca. 45 ºC override other factors. Consistently, MAG size and diversity decrease with increasing temperature, indicating a downcore winnowing of the subsurface biosphere. By contrast, specific archaeal MAGs within the Thermoproteota and Hadarchaeota increase in relative abundance and in recruitment of transcriptome reads towards deeper, hotter sediments, marking the transition towards a specialized deep, hot biosphere.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43296-x

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