Abundance and diversity of ammonia-oxidizing archaea and bacteria in sediments of trophic end members of the Laurentian Great Lakes, Erie and Superior.

ABSTRACT: Ammonia oxidation is the first step of nitrification carried out by ammonia-oxidizing Archaea (AOA) and Bacteria (AOB). Lake Superior and Erie are part of the Great Lakes system differing in trophic status with Lake Superior being oligotrophic and Lake Erie meso- to eutrophic. Sediment samples were collected from both lakes and used to characterize abundance and diversity of AOA and AOB based on the ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) gene. Diversity was accessed by a pyro-sequencing approach and the obtained sequences were used to determine the phylogeny and alpha and beta diversity of the AOA and AOB populations. In Lake Erie copy numbers of bacterial amoA genes were in the same order of magnitude or even higher than the copy numbers of the archaeal amoA genes, while in Lake Superior up to 4 or

SUBMITTER: Bollmann A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4018257 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature