Unexpected Dominance of Elusive Acidobacteria in Early Industrial Soft Coal Slags.

ABSTRACT: Acid mine drainage (AMD) and mine tailing environments are well-characterized ecosystems known to be dominated by organisms involved in iron- and sulfur-cycling. Here we examined the microbiology of industrial soft coal slags that originate from alum leaching, an ecosystem distantly related to AMD environments. Our study involved geochemical analyses, bacterial community profiling, and shotgun metagenomics. The slags still contained high amounts of alum constituents (aluminum, sulfur), which mediated direct and indirect effects on bacterial community structure. Bacterial groups typically found in AMD systems and mine tailings were not present. Instead, the soft coal slags were dominated by uncharacterized groups of Acidobacteria (DA052 [subdivision 2], KF-JG30-18 [subdivision 13]), Actinob

SUBMITTER: Wegner CE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5462947 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature