Predicting the response of the deep-ocean microbiome to geochemical perturbations by hydrothermal vents.

ABSTRACT: Submarine hydrothermal vents perturb the deep-ocean microbiome by injecting reduced chemical species into the water column that act as an energy source for chemosynthetic organisms. These systems thus provide excellent natural laboratories for studying the response of microbial communities to shifts in marine geochemistry. The present study explores the processes that regulate coupled microbial-geochemical dynamics in hydrothermal plumes by means of a novel mathematical model, which combines thermodynamics, growth and reaction kinetics, and transport processes derived from a fluid dynamics model. Simulations of a plume located in the ABE vent field of the Lau basin were able to reproduce metagenomic observations well and demonstrated that the magnitude of primary production and rate of aut

SUBMITTER: Reed DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4511942 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature