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Compositional, Physiological and Metabolic Variability in Microbial Communities Associated with Geochemically Diverse, Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Fluids

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Geomicrobiology: Molecular and Environmental Perspective

Abstract

Deep-sea hydrothermal vent environments represent one of the most physically and chemically diverse biomes in Earth. The chemical and thermal gradients (e.g., >350°C across distances as small as several centimeters in active chimneys) provide a wide range of niches for microbial communities living there (Huber and Holden 2008; Nakagawa and Takai 2008; Reysenbach et al. 2000; Takai et al. 2006a). Psychrophiles, mesophiles, thermophiles and hyperthermophiles (organisms growing best from 4°C to above 80°C) thrive by chemolithoautotrophy or heterotrophy, utilizing abundant available inorganic and organic chemical energy, carbon and other element sources. They reside as free-living forms in the rocky and sedimentary mixing interfaces between hot, highly reductive hydrothermal fluids (high temperatures of endmember hydrothermal fluids) and ambient seawaters beneath and at the seafloor (along subseafloor hydrothermal fluid paths, and in and on chimneys and sediments) and within lower temperatures of diffuse fluids mainly resulting from subseafloor mixing between endmember hydrothermal fluids and ambient seawaters, and as facultative or obligate symbionts on and within invertebrate hosts (Takai et al. 2006a).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Subsurface Geobiology Advanced Research (SUGAR) Project, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), 2-15 Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka, 237-0061, Japan

    Ken Takai

  2. Precambrian Ecosystem Laboratory, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), 2-15 Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka, 237-0061, Japan

    Ken Takai & Kentaro Nakamura

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  1. Ken Takai
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  2. Kentaro Nakamura
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Correspondence to Ken Takai .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Biology, University of New Mexico, Castetter Hall 167, Albuquerque, 87131-0001, USA

    Larry L. Barton

  2. , Faculty of Science, Dept. of Biochmistry, Masaryk University, Kortlarska 2, Brno, 611 37, Czech Republic

    Martin Mandl

  3. , Department of Microbial Ecology, Fac. of, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, Vienna, A-1090, Austria

    Alexander Loy

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Takai, K., Nakamura, K. (2010). Compositional, Physiological and Metabolic Variability in Microbial Communities Associated with Geochemically Diverse, Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Fluids. In: Barton, L., Mandl, M., Loy, A. (eds) Geomicrobiology: Molecular and Environmental Perspective. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9204-5_12

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