Microbial community dynamics in Inferno Crater Lake, a thermally fluctuating geothermal spring.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how microbial communities respond and adjust to ecosystem perturbation is often difficult to interpret due to multiple and often simultaneous variations in observed conditions. In this research, we investigated the microbial community dynamics of Inferno Crater Lake, an acidic geothermal spring in New Zealand with a unique thermal cycle that varies between 30 and 80 °C over a period of 40-60 days. Using a combination of next-generation sequencing, geochemical analysis and quantitative PCR we found that the microbial community composition was predominantly chemolithotrophic and strongly associated with the thermal cycle. At temperatures >65 °C, the microbial community was dominated almost exclusively by sulphur-oxidising archaea (Sulfolobus-like spp.). By contrast, at mesophil

SUBMITTER: Ward L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5437927 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature