Abstract
A variety of microbially mediated metabolic pathways impact biogeochemical cycling in terrestrial subsurface environments. However, the role that viruses have in influencing microbial mortality and microbial community structure is poorly understood. Here we investigated the production of viruses and change in microbial community structure within shallow alluvial aquifer sediment slurries amended with 13C-labeled acetate and nitrate. Biostimulation resulted in production of viruses concurrent with acetate oxidation, 13CO2 production and nitrate reduction. Interestingly, change in viral abundance was positively correlated to acetate consumption (r2=0.6252, P<0.05) and 13CO2 production (r2=0.6572, P<0.05); whereas change in cell abundance was not correlated to acetate consumption or 13CO2 production. Viral-mediated cell lysis has implications for microbial community structure. Betaproteobacteria predominated microbial community composition (62% of paired-end reads) upon inoculation but decreased in relative abundance and was negatively correlated to changes in viral abundance (r2=0.5036, P<0.05). As members of the Betaproteobacteria decreased, Gammaproteobacteria, specifically Pseudomonas spp., increased in relative abundance (82% of paired-end reads) and was positively correlated with the change in viral abundance (r2=0.5368, P<0.05). A nitrate-reducing bacterium, Pseudomonas sp. strain Alda10, was isolated from these sediments and produced viral-like particles with a filamentous morphology that did not result in cell lysis. Together, these results indicate that viruses are linked to carbon biogeochemistry and community structure in terrestrial subsurface sediments. The subsequent cell lysis has the potential to alter available carbon pools in subsurface environments, additionally controlling microbial community structure from the bottom-up.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank members of the Weber laboratory and Soil Conservation Survey for assistance with sample collection and MPN enumeration. We also thank Drs Charles Kuszynski and Davide Quaranta for their assistance with flow cytometry; Dr Han Chen for assistance with TEM; and Drs Jim Van Etten and Paul Blum for their experimental discussions. This project was supported by The US Department of Energy Subsurface Biogeochemistry Program to KAW (DE-SC0004113). Sample collection was supported by the US Geological Survey WRRI 104b Program (2009NE183B) to KAW and DDS. Additional support for DP and RW and DW was provided by the National Science Foundation IGERT Fellowship (0903469) and UNL UCARE Program, respectively.
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Pan, D., Watson, R., Wang, D. et al. Correlation between viral production and carbon mineralization under nitrate-reducing conditions in aquifer sediment. ISME J 8, 1691–1703 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2014.38
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