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Distribution and Diversity of Nitrite-Dependent Anaerobic Methane-Oxidising Bacteria in the Sediments of the Qiantang River

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

Nitrite-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation (n-damo) process was reported to be mediated by “Candidatus Methylomirabilis oxyfera”, which belongs to the candidate phylum NC10. M. oxyfera-like bacteria have been detected in lake ecosystems, while their distribution, diversity and abundance in river ecosystems have not been well studied. In this study, both the 16S rRNA and the pmoA molecular biomarkers confirmed the presence of diverse NC10 phylum bacteria related to M. oxyfera in a river ecosystem—the Qiantang River, Zhejiang Province (China). Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA genes demonstrated that the recovered M. oxyfera-like sequences could be grouped into several distinct clusters that exhibited 89.8 % to 98.9 % identity to the M. oxyfera 16S rRNA gene. Similarly, several different clusters of pmoA gene sequences were observed, and these clusters displayed 85.1–95.4 % sequence identity to the pmoA gene of M. oxyfera. Quantitative PCR showed that the abundance of M. oxyfera-like bacteria varied from 1.32 ± 0.16 × 106 to 1.03 ± 0.12 × 107 copies g (dry weight)−1. Correlation analysis demonstrated that the total inorganic nitrogen content, the ammonium content and the organic content of the sediment were important factors affecting the distribution of M. oxyfera-like bacterial groups in the examined sediments. This study demonstrated the distribution of diverse M. oxyfera-like bacteria and their correlation with environmental factors in Qiantang River sediments.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Natural Science Foundation (No. 51108408) and Shanghai Tongji Gao Tingyao Environmental Science and Technology Development Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Li-dong Shen, Shuai Liu, Chen Cai, Li-ping Lou, Xiang-yang Xu, Ping Zheng & Bao-lan Hu

  2. Institute of Life Science, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, 310053, China

    Qun Zhu, Xiao-yu Li & Dong-qing Cheng

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  1. Li-dong Shen
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  2. Shuai Liu
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  3. Qun Zhu
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  10. Bao-lan Hu
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Correspondence to Bao-lan Hu.

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Shen, Ld., Liu, S., Zhu, Q. et al. Distribution and Diversity of Nitrite-Dependent Anaerobic Methane-Oxidising Bacteria in the Sediments of the Qiantang River. Microb Ecol 67, 341–349 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-013-0330-0

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