Production and consumption of hydrogen in hot spring microbial mats dominated by a filamentous anoxygenic photosynthetic bacterium.

ABSTRACT: Microbial mats containing the filamentous anoxygenic photosynthetic bacterium Chloroflexus aggregans develop at Nakabusa hot spring in Japan. Under anaerobic conditions in these mats, interspecies interaction between sulfate-reducing bacteria as sulfide producers and C. aggregans as a sulfide consumer has been proposed to constitute a sulfur cycle; however, the electron donor utilized for microbial sulfide production at Nakabusa remains to be identified. In order to determine this electron donor and its source, ex situ experimental incubation of mats was explored. In the presence of molybdate, which inhibits biological sulfate reduction, hydrogen gas was released from mat samples, indicating that this hydrogen is normally consumed as an electron donor by sulfate-reducing bacteria. Hydrogen

SUBMITTER: Otaki H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4036054 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature