Coordinating environmental genomics and geochemistry reveals metabolic transitions in a hot spring ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: We have constructed a conceptual model of biogeochemical cycles and metabolic and microbial community shifts within a hot spring ecosystem via coordinated analysis of the "Bison Pool" (BP) Environmental Genome and a complementary contextual geochemical dataset of ~75 geochemical parameters. 2,321 16S rRNA clones and 470 megabases of environmental sequence data were produced from biofilms at five sites along the outflow of BP, an alkaline hot spring in Sentinel Meadow (Lower Geyser Basin) of Yellowstone National Park. This channel acts as a >22 m gradient of decreasing temperature, increasing dissolved oxygen, and changing availability of biologically important chemical species, such as those containing nitrogen and sulfur. Microbial life at BP transitions from a 92 °C chemotrophic streamer

SUBMITTER: Swingley WD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3367023 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature