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Comparative Metagenomics of Eight Geographically Remote Terrestrial Hot Springs

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

Hot springs are natural habitats for thermophilic Archaea and Bacteria. In this paper, we present the metagenomic analysis of eight globally distributed terrestrial hot springs from China, Iceland, Italy, Russia, and the USA with a temperature range between 61 and 92 ∘C and pH between 1.8 and 7. A comparison of the biodiversity and community composition generally showed a decrease in biodiversity with increasing temperature and decreasing pH. Another important factor shaping microbial diversity of the studied sites was the abundance of organic substrates. Several species of the Crenarchaeal order Thermoprotei were detected, whereas no single bacterial species was found in all samples, suggesting a better adaptation of certain archaeal species to different thermophilic environments. Two hot springs show high abundance of Acidithiobacillus, supporting the idea of a true thermophilic Acidithiobacillus species that can thrive in hyperthermophilic environments. Depending on the sample, up to 58 % of sequencing reads could not be assigned to a known phylum, reinforcing the fact that a large number of microorganisms in nature, including those thriving in hot environments remain to be isolated and characterized.

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Acknowledgments

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union 7th Framework Program-me FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no. 265933.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Ole Maaløes Vej 5, 2200, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Peter Menzel, Sóley Ruth Gudbergsdóttir, Anders Krogh & Xu Peng

  2. Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, Postboks 3930 Ullevål Stadion, 0806, Oslo, Norway

    Anne Gunn Rike

  3. Biotechnology Research Center, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650500, China

    Lianbing Lin & Qi Zhang

  4. Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, Napoli, 80126, Italy

    Patrizia Contursi

  5. Department of Biology, Agriculture and Food Science, Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources, Via P. Castellino 111, 80131, Naples, Italy

    Marco Moracci

  6. Prokazyme ehf, P.O. Box 10165, IS-130, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Jakob K. Kristjansson

  7. Montana State University, 119 Plant BioScience Building, PO Box 173150, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

    Benjamin Bolduc & Mark Young

  8. Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 117312, Moscow, Russia

    Sergey Gavrilov & Elizaveta Bonch-Osmolovskaya

  9. Bioengineering Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, 117312, Moscow, Russia

    Nikolai Ravin & Andrey Mardanov

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  1. Peter Menzel
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Correspondence to Xu Peng.

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Menzel, P., Gudbergsdóttir, S.R., Rike, A.G. et al. Comparative Metagenomics of Eight Geographically Remote Terrestrial Hot Springs. Microb Ecol 70, 411–424 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-015-0576-9

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