Redox gradient shapes the abundance and diversity of mercury-methylating microorganisms along the water column of the Black Sea.

ABSTRACT: In the global context of seawater deoxygenation triggered by climate change and anthropogenic activities, changes in redox gradients impacting biogeochemical transformations of pollutants, such as mercury, become more likely. Being the largest anoxic basin worldwide, with high concentrations of the potent neurotoxic methylmercury (MeHg), the Black Sea is an ideal natural laboratory to provide new insights about the link between dissolved oxygen concentration and hgcAB gene-carrying (hgc⁺) microorganisms involved in the formation of MeHg. We combined geochemical and microbial approaches to assess the effect of vertical redox gradients on abundance, diversity, and metabolic potential of hgc⁺ microorganisms in the Black Sea water column. The abundanc

SUBMITTER: Cabrol L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10469668 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature