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Bacterial and Archaeal Communities in Sediments of the North Chinese Marginal Seas

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

Microbial communities of the Chinese marginal seas have rarely been reported. Here, bacterial and archaeal community structures and abundance in the surface sediment of four sea areas including the Bohai Sea (BS), North Yellow Sea (NYS), South Yellow Sea (SYS), and the north East China Sea (NECS) were surveyed by 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene pyrosequencing and quantitative PCR. The results showed that microbial communities of the four geographic areas were distinct from each other at the operational taxonomic unit (OTU) level, whereas the microbial communities of the BS, NYS, and SYS were more similar to each other than to the NECS at higher taxonomic levels. Across all samples, Bacteria were numerically dominant relative to Archaea, and among them, Gammaproteobacteria and Euryarchaeota were predominant in the BS, NYS, and SYS, while Deltaproteobacteria and Thaumarchaeota were prevalent in the NECS. The most abundant bacterial genera were putative sulfur oxidizer and sulfate reducer, suggesting that sulfur cycle processes might prevail in these areas, and the high abundance of dsrB (107–108 copies g−1) in all sites verified the dominance of sulfate reducer in the north Chinese marginal seas. The differences in sediment sources among the sampling areas were potential explanations for the observed microbial community variations. Furthermore, temperature and dissolved oxygen of bottom water were significant environmental factors in determining both bacterial and archaeal communities, whereas chlorophyll a in sediment was significant only in structuring archaeal community. This study presented an outline of benthic microbial communities and provided insights into understanding the biogeochemical cycles in sediments of the north Chinese marginal seas.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all of the scientists and crew members on the R/V Dong Fang Hong 2 during the expedition for their great efforts and help in sample collection. We also thank Yonghong Wang of Ocean University of China for providing CTD records. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China through grants 41476112, 41276141, 41221004, and 41006081.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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  1. College of Marine Life Sciences, Ocean University of China, 5 Yushan Road, 266003, Qingdao, China

    Jiwen Liu, Xiaoshou Liu, Min Wang, Yanlu Qiao, Yanfen Zheng & Xiao-Hua Zhang

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  1. Jiwen Liu
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  2. Xiaoshou Liu
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  3. Min Wang
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  4. Yanlu Qiao
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Liu, J., Liu, X., Wang, M. et al. Bacterial and Archaeal Communities in Sediments of the North Chinese Marginal Seas. Microb Ecol 70, 105–117 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-014-0553-8

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