Natural occurrence of microbial sulphur oxidation by long-range electron transport in the seafloor.

ABSTRACT: Recently, a novel mode of sulphur oxidation was described in marine sediments, in which sulphide oxidation in deeper anoxic layers was electrically coupled to oxygen reduction at the sediment surface. Subsequent experimental evidence identified that long filamentous bacteria belonging to the family Desulfobulbaceae likely mediated the electron transport across the centimetre-scale distances. Such long-range electron transfer challenges some long-held views in microbial ecology and could have profound implications for sulphur cycling in marine sediments. But, so far, this process of electrogenic sulphur oxidation has been documented only in laboratory experiments and so its imprint on the seafloor remains unknown. Here we show that the geochemical signature of electrogenic sulphur oxidation

SUBMITTER: Malkin SY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4139731 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature