Abstract
The central Baltic Sea is characterized by a pelagic redox zone exhibiting high dark CO2 fixation rates below the chemocline. These rates are mainly driven by chemolithoautotrophic and denitrifying Sulfurimonas GD17 subgroup cells which are motile and fast-reacting r-strategists. Baltic Sea redox zones are unstable and a measurable overlap of nitrate and reduced sulfur, essential for chemosynthesis, is often only available on small scales and short times due to local mixing events. This raises the question of how GD17 cells gain access to electron donors or acceptors over longer term periods and under substrate deficiency. One possible answer is that GD17 cells store high-energy-containing polyphosphate during favorable nutrient conditions to survive periods of nutrient starvation. We used scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to investigate potential substrate enrichments in single GD17 cells collected from Baltic Sea redox zones. More specific substrate enrichment features were identified in experiments using Sulfurimonas gotlandica GD1T, a GD17 representative. Sulfurimonas cells accumulated polyphosphate both in situ and in vitro. Combined genome and culture-dependent analyses suggest that polyphosphate serves as an energy reservoir to maintain cellular integrity at unfavorable substrate conditions. This redox-independent energy supply would be a precondition for sustaining the r-strategy lifestyle of GD17 and may represent a newly identified survival strategy for chemolithoautotrophic prokaryotes occupying eutrophic redox zones.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the captains and crews of the R/V Salme and R/V Poseidon. The excellent technical assistance of Ronny Baaske, Heike Brockmöller, Sascha Plewe, and Fabiola Henning is greatly appreciated. Special thanks goes to Heribert Cypionka for his essential advice concerning the freeware program “Trace”; and HC as well as Heide Schulz-Vogt for helpful discussions. We thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for grants LA 1466/4-1, 4-2, the Baltisch-Deutsches Hochschulkontor, and the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) for funding.
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Möller, L., Laas, P., Rogge, A. et al. Sulfurimonas subgroup GD17 cells accumulate polyphosphate under fluctuating redox conditions in the Baltic Sea: possible implications for their ecology. ISME J 13, 482–493 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-018-0267-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-018-0267-x
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