Collaborative Research: Using thermocouple arrays to investigate temporal and spatial microbial colonization in actively forming hydrothermal vent deposits

在大洋中脊和弧后盆地，深海热液喷口矿床被认为是重要的生物地球化学环境，其温度在几厘米的距离内从~2摄氏度到400摄氏度不等。这些沉积物为各种细菌和古生物提供了微生境，这些微生物和古生物受到从海底喷发的流体并与海水混合时产生的化学梯度的支持。虽然许多研究都在喷口沉积物中寻找微生物的证据，但在辨别新形成的物质中存在哪些微生物，以及检查在较成熟的沉积物中观察到的多样性在多大程度上是陡峭的化学和温度梯度的结果、群落演替的结果或两者兼而有之的结果方面所做的工作较少。在这个项目中，研究人员将通过在瓜伊马斯盆地部署热电偶阵列来解决这一重要的研究领域。将从每个热电偶周围检索现场实验和回收样本，并沿着强烈的温度和化学梯度进行分析。研究人员将使用分子技术，如16S rRNA基因的Q-PCR，提供古生菌和细菌数量相对转移(演替)的快照。某些生理学的重要性(如硫酸盐还原、dsrB和产甲烷，MCRA)将与观察到的微生物多样性的时间变化相关。这些分析将使研究人员能够测试热液沉积物的微生物定居是否存在任何时间或空间差异。此外，还将能够显示不同喷口之间的微生物定植模式是否存在差异。这个项目的一个额外优势是它的设计是对一个已经获得资金的项目的补充，该项目正在研究喷口矿床中嗜酸性物质的分布以及当地矿物学或地球化学的影响。来自该项目的新信息将被纳入调查人员正在进行的外联活动中，他们将继续通过撰写一般性文章、在学校讲课以及通过学校教师的继续教育与公众分享深海喷口新发现的兴奋之情。

At mid-ocean ridges and back-arc basins, deep-sea hydrothermal vent deposits are recognized as important biogeochemical environments in which temperatures vary from ~2ºC to 400ºC across distances of a few centimeters. The deposits provide microhabitats for a diversity of Bacteria and Archaea that are supported by chemical gradients that result when vent fluids from the seafloor and mix with seawater. While many studies have looked for evidence of microorganisms within vent deposits, fewer have been done to discern which microorganisms are present within newly formed material, and to examine the extent to which the observed diversity in more mature deposits is a result of the steep chemical and thermal gradients, a result of community succession, or a combination of both. In this project the investigators will address this important area of research by using deployments of thermocouple arrays in Guaymas Basin. Experiments in place will be retrieved and samples recovered from around each thermocouple, and analyzed along strong thermal and chemical gradients. The investigators will use molecular techniques such as Q-PCR of 16S rRNA genes to provide a snapshot of the relative shifts (succession) in abundance of Archaea and Bacteria. The importance of certain physiologies (such as sulfate reduction, dsrB, and methanogenesis, mcrA) will be correlated to the observed temporal changes in microbial diversity. These analyses will allow the investigators to test whether there are any temporal or spatial differences in microbial colonization of the hydrothermal deposits. Furthermore thay will be able to show whether or not differences in patterns of microbial colonization exist between different vent fields. An added strength of this project is its design as a complement to an already funded project which is looking at the distribution of acidophiles in vent deposits and the influence of local mineralogy or geochemistry. The new information from this project will be included in the investigators ongoing outreach where they continue to share the excitement of new deep-sea vent discoveries with the public through writing general articles, giving lectures at schools, and through continuing education for school teachers.