Archaeal and Bacterial Diversity in an Arsenic-Rich Shallow-Sea Hydrothermal System Undergoing Phase Separation
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 09 July 2013 doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2013.00158 Archaeal and bacterial diversity in an arsenic-rich shallow-sea hydrothermal system undergoing phase separation Roy E. Price 1*, Ryan Lesniewski 2, Katja S. Nitzsche 3,4, Anke Meyerdierks 3, Chad Saltikov 5, Thomas Pichler 6 and Jan P. Amend 1,2 1 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 2 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 3 Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany 4 Geomicrobiology, Center for Applied Geosciences, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany 5 Department of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA 6 Department of Geochemistry and Hydrogeology, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany Edited by: Phase separation is a ubiquitous process in seafloor hydrothermal vents, creating a large Anna-Louise Reysenbach, Portland range of salinities. Toxic elements (e.g., arsenic) partition into the vapor phase, and thus State University, USA can be enriched in both high and low salinity fluids. However, investigations of microbial Reviewed by: diversity at sites associated with phase separation are rare. We evaluated prokaryotic John Stolz, Duquesne University, USA diversity in arsenic-rich shallow-sea vents off Milos Island (Greece) by comparative analysis Julie L. Meyer, Marine Biological of 16S rRNA clone sequences from two vent sites with similar pH and temperature Laboratory, USA but marked differences in salinity. Clone sequences were also obtained for aioA-like *Correspondence: functional genes (AFGs). Bacteria in the surface sediments (0–1.5 cm) at the high salinity Roy E.
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