Abstract
Water from The Cedars springs that discharge from serpentinized ultramafic rocks feature highly basic (pH=~12), highly reducing (Eh<−550 mV) conditions with low ionic concentrations. These conditions make the springs exceptionally challenging for life. Here, we report the metagenomic data and recovered draft genomes from two different springs, GPS1 and BS5. GPS1, which was fed solely by a deep groundwater source within the serpentinizing system, was dominated by several bacterial taxa from the phyla OD1 (‘Parcubacteria’) and Chloroflexi. Members of the GPS1 community had, for the most part, the smallest genomes reported for their respective taxa, and encoded only archaeal (A-type) ATP synthases or no ATP synthases at all. Furthermore, none of the members encoded respiration-related genes and some of the members also did not encode key biosynthesis-related genes. In contrast, BS5, fed by shallow water, appears to have a community driven by hydrogen metabolism and was dominated by a diverse group of Proteobacteria similar to those seen in many terrestrial serpentinization sites. Our findings indicated that the harsh ultrabasic geological setting supported unexpectedly diverse microbial metabolic strategies and that the deep-water-fed springs supported a community that was remarkable in its unusual metagenomic and genomic constitution.
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Acknowledgements
We greatly appreciate Roger Raiche and David McCrory for providing their private land for our research. We thank Drs Greg Wanger, Orianna Bretschger and Nathan Walworth for the field support and constructive discussions. This work was funded by the NSF-EAR Grant Nos 1024872, 1424646 and 1424711. This work was partly supported by the JSPS Grand-in-Aid for Science Research Nos 26106004, 16K14647, 15H069907, 26251041 and 15K14907. This is a contribution to the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO).
Author contributions
SS, SI and KHN designed research; SS, SI and AT performed metagenomic analyses, TH and FI performed microscopic analyses, AR and PLM performed aqueous geochemical analysis, SS, SI, JGK and KHN wrote the paper. SS and SI contributed to this research equally.
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Suzuki, S., Ishii, S., Hoshino, T. et al. Unusual metabolic diversity of hyperalkaliphilic microbial communities associated with subterranean serpentinization at The Cedars. ISME J 11, 2584–2598 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.111
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.111
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