Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Archaeal diversity in a Fe–As rich acid mine drainage at Carnoulès (France)

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Extremophiles Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The acid waters (pH = 2.73–3.4) that originate from the Carnoulès mine tailings (France) are known for their very high concentrations of As (up to 10,000 mg l−1) and Fe (up to 20,000 mg l−1). To analyze the composition of the archaeal community, (their temporal variation inside the tailing and spatial variations all along the Reigous Creek, which drains the site), seven 16S rRNA gene libraries were constructed. Clone analysis revealed that all the sequences were affiliated to the phylum Euryarchaeota, while Crenarchaeota were not represented. The study showed that the structure of the archaeal community of the aquifer of the tailing stock is different to that of the Reigous Creek. Irrespective of the time of sampling, the most abundant sequences found inside the tailing stock were related to Ferroplasma acidiphilum, an acidophilic and ferrous-iron oxidizing Archaea well known for its role in bioleaching. Inversely, in Reigous Creek, a sequence affiliated to the uncultured Thermoplasmatales archaeon, clone YAC1, was largely dominant. This study provides a better understanding of the microbial community associated with an acid mine drainage rich in arsenic.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig.1 

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Altschul SF, Gish W, Miller W, Myers EW, Lipman DJ (1990) Basic local alignment search tool. J Mol Biol 215:403–410

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Baker BJ, Banfield JF (2003) Microbial communities in acid mine drainage. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 44:139–152

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Baker-Austin C, Dopson M, Wexler M, Sawers RG, Stemmler A, Rosen BP, Bond PL (2007) Extreme arsenic resistance by the acidophilic archaeon “Ferroplasma acidarmanus” Fer1. Extremophiles 11:425–434

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bohari Y, Astruc A, Astruc M, Cloud J (2001) Improvements of hydride generation for the speciation of arsenic in natural freshwater samples by HPLC-HG-AFS. J Anal At Spectrom 16:774–778

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bond PL, Smriga SP, Banfield JF (2000) Phylogeny of microoorgansims populating a thick, subaerial, predominantly lithotrophic biofilm at an extreme acid mine drainage site. Appl Environ Microbiol 66:3842–3849

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bruneel O, Personné J-C, Casiot C, Leblanc M, Elbaz-Poulichet F, Mahler BJ, Le Flèche A, Grimont PAD (2003) Mediation of arsenic oxidation by Thiomonas sp. in acid mine drainage (Carnoulès, France). J Appl Microbiol 95:492–499

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bruneel O, Duran R, Koffi K, Casiot C, Fourçans A, Elbaz-Poulichet F, Personné J-C (2005) Microbial diversity in a pyrite-rich tailings impoundment (Carnoulès, France). Geomicrobiol J 22:249–257

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bruneel O, Duran R, Casiot C, Elbaz-Poulichet F, Personné JC (2006) Diversity of acidophilic microorganisms involved in Fe–As immobilisation and oxidation in Carnoulès acid mine drainage (France). Appl Environ Microbiol 72:551–556

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Casiot C, Leblanc M, Bruneel O, Personné J-C, Koffi K, Elbaz-Poulichet F (2003a) Geochemical processes controlling the formation of As-rich waters within a tailings impoundment. Aquatic Geochem 9:273–290

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Casiot C, Morin G, Juillot F, Bruneel O, Personné JC, Leblanc M, Duquesne K, Bonnefoy V, Elbaz-Poulichet F (2003b) Bacterial immobilization of arsenic in acid mine drainage (Carnoulès creek, France). Water Res 37:2929–2936

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Chaban B, Ng SYM, Jarrell KF (2006) Archaeal habitats, from the extreme to the ordinary. Can J Microbiol 52:73–116

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Delong EF (1992) Archaea in coastal marine environments. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 89:5685–5689

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dopson M, Baker-Austin C, Hind A, Bowman JP, Bond PL (2004) Characterization of Ferroplasma isolates and Ferroplasma acidarmanus sp. nov., extreme acidophiles from acid mine drainage and industrial bioleaching environments. Appl Environ Microbiol 70:2079–2088

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards KJ, Bond PL, Gihring TM, Banfield JF (2000) An archaeal iron-oxidizing extreme acidophile important in acid mine drainage. Science 287:1796–1799

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Felsenstein J (1993) PHYLIP-Phylogeny Inference Package (version 3.5c). Department of Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle

    Google Scholar 

  • Gihring TM, Bond PL, Peters SC, Banfield JF (2003) Arsenic resistance in the archaeon “Ferroplasma acidarmanus”: new insights into the structure and evolution of the ars genes. Extremophiles 7:123–130

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Golyshina OV, Timmis KN (2005) Ferroplasma and relatives, recently discovered cell wall-lacking Archaea making a living in extremely acid, heavy metal-rich environments. Environ Microbiol 7:1277–1288

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Golyshina OV, Pivovarova TA, Karavaiko GI, Kondrateva TF, Moore ERB, Abraham WR, Lunsdorf H, Timmis KN, Yakimov MM, Golyshin PN (2000) Ferroplasma acidiphilum gen. nov., sp nov., an acidophilic, autotrophic, ferrous-iron-oxidizing, cell-wall-lacking, mesophilic member of the Ferroplasmaceae fam. nov., comprising a distinct lineage of the Archaea. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 50:997–1006

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Good IJ (1953) The population frequencies of species and the estimation of the population parameters. Biometrika 40:237–264

    Google Scholar 

  • Huber R, Sacher M, Vollmann A, Huber H, Rose D (2000) Respiration of arsenate and selenate by hyperthermophilic Archaea. Syst Appl Microbiol 23:305–14

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson DB (1998) Biodiversity and ecology of acidophilic microorganisms. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 27:307–317

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson DB, Hallberg KB (2003) The microbiology of acidic mine waters. Res Microbiol 154:466–473

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Katsoyiannis IA, Zouboulis AI (2004) Application of biological processes for the removal of arsenic from groundwater. Water Res 38:17–26

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Koffi K, Leblanc M, Jourde H, Casiot C, Pistre S, Gouze P, Elbaz-Poulichet F (2003) Reverse oxidation zoning in mine tailings generating arsenic-rich acidic waters (Carnoulès, France). Mine Water Environ 22:7–14

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Langmuir D (1997) Acid mine waters. In: McConnin R (eds) Aqueous environmental geochemistry. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, pp 457–478

    Google Scholar 

  • Leblanc M, Casiot C, Elbaz-Poulichet F, Personné C (2002) Arsenic removal by oxidizing bacteria in a heavily arsenic contaminated acid mine drainage system (Carnoulès, France). In: Younger PL, Robins NS (eds) Mine water hydrogeology and geochemistry. Geological Society of London Special Publication, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 464

    Google Scholar 

  • Maidak BL, Cole JR, Lilburn TG, Parker CT, Jr Saxman PR, Farri RJ (2001) The RDP-II (Ribosomal Database Project). Nucleic Acids Res 29:173–174

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Morin G, Juillot F Casiot C Bruneel O Personné J-C, Elbaz-Poulichet F, Leblanc M, Ildefonse P, Calas G (2003) Bacterial formation of tooeleite and mixed arsenic(III) or arsenic(V)-iron(III) gels in the Carnoulès acid mine drainage, France. A XANES, XRD, and SEM study. Environ Sci Technol 37:1705–1712

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Oremland RS, Stolz JF (2003) The ecology of arsenic. Science 300:939–944

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pontes DS, Lima-Bittencourt CI, Chartone-Souza E, Nascimento AMA (2007) Molecular approaches: advantages and artifacts in assessing bacterial diversity. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 34:463–473

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rodier J, Broutin JP, Chambon P, Champsaur H, Rodier L (1996) L’analyse de l’eau. Dunod, Paris, p 1383

    Google Scholar 

  • Spear JR, Walker JJ, McCollom TM, Pace NR (2005) Hydrogen and bioenergetics in the Yellowstone geothermal ecosystem. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:2555–2560

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson JD, Higgins DG, Gibson TJ (1994) CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucleic Acids Res 22:4673–4680

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Tyson GW, Lo I, Baker BJ, Allen EE, Hugenholtz P, Banfield JF (2005) Genome-directed isolation of the key nitrogen fixer Leptospirillum ferrodiazotrophum sp. nov. from an acidophilic microbial community. Appl Environ Microbiol 71:6319–6324

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zettler LAA, Gómez F, Zettler E, Keenan BG, Amils R, Sogin ML (2002) Eukaryotic diversity in spains river of fire. Nature 417:137

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The study was financed by the EC2CO programme (Institut National des Sciences de l’Univers, CNRS). We thank Marjorie Cloez for identification of the archaeal population in the site, and Marie Ange Cordier for assistance in analysis of physical–chemical parameters.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Hydrosciences Montpellier, UMR 5569, IRD, CNRS, Universités Montpellier 1 et 2, Université Montpellier 2, Place E. Bataillon, Case MSE, 34095, Montpellier Cedex 05, France

    O. Bruneel, N. Pascault, M. Egal, C. Bancon-Montigny, F. Elbaz-Poulichet & J.-C. Personné

  2. Equipe Environnement et Microbiologie UMR CNRS 5254, IPREM, EEM, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, Avenue de l’Université, IBEAS, BP 1155, 64013, Pau Cedex, France

    M. S. Goñi-Urriza & R. Duran

Authors
  1. O. Bruneel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. N. Pascault
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. M. Egal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. C. Bancon-Montigny
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. M. S. Goñi-Urriza
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. F. Elbaz-Poulichet
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. J.-C. Personné
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. R. Duran
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to O. Bruneel.

Additional information

Communicated by J.N. Reeve.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bruneel, O., Pascault, N., Egal, M. et al. Archaeal diversity in a Fe–As rich acid mine drainage at Carnoulès (France). Extremophiles 12, 563–571 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-008-0160-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-008-0160-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation