Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

PC04 Microbial Diversity

Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2001

Location: Southwest Hall

Campbell, B, J, University of Delaware College of Marine Studies, Lewes, USA, bjc@udel.edu

Waidner, L, A, University of Delaware College of Marine Studies, Lewes, USA, lwaidner@udel.edu

Reysenbach, A, L, Portland State University, Portland, USA, reseynbacha@pdx.edu

Luther, G, , University of Delaware College of Marine Studies, Lewes, USA, luther@udel.edu

Cary, S, C, University of Delaware College of Marine Studies, Lewes, USA, caryc@udel.edu

BACTERIAL STRATIFICATION IN DEEP-SEA HYDROTHERMAL VENT CHIMNEYS AS DETERMINED BY MOLECULAR METHODS

Since discovering hydrothermal vents over 20 years ago, there has been widespread interest in characterizing microbial communities inhabiting these extreme ecosystems. Because of difficulties in extraction of amplifiable DNA from these mineral-laden sulfidic samples, almost all previous work has centered around isolation of thermophilic and hyperthermophilic microorganisms. We have successfully extracted DNA and characterized microbial communities from several hydrothermal vent environments, and will present results from two physically unique chimneys obtained from 9N along the East Pacific Rise. 16S rDNA bacterial clone libraries generated from full-length PCR products were characterized by RFLP and sequence analysis. With both chimneys, extent of sequence heterogeneity decreased from the outside veneer to the inside, with the top section intermediate. Interestingly, there was a prevalence of Bacillus sp. in the inner and top sections, while epsilon proteobacteria dominated the outer veneer. Despite differences in chemistry and location of the sampled chimneys, there were definite parallels between types and amounts of bacteria observed and the section of chimney characterized. The dominance of bacilli within the chimneys was confirmed by in situ hybridization analysis.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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