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Highly Similar Prokaryotic Communities of Sunken Wood at Shallow and Deep-Sea Sites Across the Oceans

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

With an increased appreciation of the frequency of their occurrence, large organic falls such as sunken wood and whale carcasses have become important to consider in the ecology of the oceans. Organic-rich deep-sea falls may play a major role in the dispersal and evolution of chemoautotrophic communities at the ocean floor, and chemosynthetic symbiotic, free-living, and attached microorganisms may drive the primary production at these communities. However, little is known about the microbiota thriving in and around organic falls. Our aim was to investigate and compare free-living and attached communities of bacteria and archaea from artificially immersed and naturally sunken wood logs with varying characteristics at several sites in the deep sea and in shallow water to address basic questions on the microbial ecology of sunken wood. Multivariate indirect ordination analyses of capillary electrophoresis single-stranded conformation polymorphisms (CE-SSCP) fingerprinting profiles demonstrated high similarity of bacterial and archaeal assemblages present in timbers and logs situated at geographically distant sites and at different depths of immersion. This similarity implies that wood falls harbor a specialized microbiota as observed in other ecosystems when the same environmental conditions reoccur. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy observations combined with multivariate direct gradient analysis of Bacteria CE-SSCP profiles demonstrate that type of wood (hard vs. softwood), and time of immersion are important in structuring sunken wood bacterial communities. Archaeal populations were present only in samples with substantial signs of decay, which were also more similar in their bacterial assemblages, providing indirect evidence of temporal succession in the microbial communities that develop in and around wood falls.

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Acknowledgments

We thank J. Ghiglione, O. Zemb, and N. West for insights into CE-SSCP analysis and L. Intergaglia, M. Bourrant (OOB, France), and A. Boetius (MPI, Germany) for help with wood implantation experiments. We are indebted to A. Baco (WHOI, USA), who provided California sample and C. Smith (Univ. Hawaii, USA) for his advice and encouragement on wood falls work. We thank S. Duperron (Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, France), C. Smith, and two anonymous reviewers for inputs on manuscript preparation. We are thankful to the sailors and divers from the OOB and captain and crew from the R/V Alis. Scanning and transmission electron microscopies were performed at the Service de Microscopie Electronique, IFR 83 de Biologie Integrative-CNRS/Paris VI. This work has been financed by a Marie Curie Posdoctoral Fellowship to C.P. and by DIWOOD project (PI F.G.).

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  1. Carmen Palacios

    Present address: UMR 5244 CNRS-EPHE-UPVD, Biologie et Ecologie Tropicale et Mediterraneenne, Equipe de Parasitologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Universite de Perpignan Via Dolomita, Universite 52 AV. Paul Alduy, 66860, Perpignan Cedex, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire ARAGO, Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls-sur-mer (OOB), Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris6, Banyuls-sur-mer, BP44, 66650, France

    Carmen Palacios & Philippe Lebaron

  2. Laboratoire d’Océanographie Biologique, BP44, CNRS/INSU, UMR7621, Banyuls-sur-mer, 66650, France

    Carmen Palacios & Philippe Lebaron

  3. Laboratoire de Systématique Adaptation et Evolution, 4 place Jussieu, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris6, 75252, Paris, France

    Magali Zbinden, Marie Pailleret & Françoise Gaill

  4. CNRS, UMR7138, AMEX, 4 place Jussieu, 75252, Paris, France

    Magali Zbinden, Marie Pailleret & Françoise Gaill

  5. Dept Histoire de la terre, Paléodiversité et Paléoenvironnements, Museum national d’Histoire naturelle, CNRS, UMR 5143, Case postale 48, 57 rue Cuvier, 75231, Paris Cedex 05, France

    Marie Pailleret

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  1. Carmen Palacios
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Correspondence to Carmen Palacios.

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Palacios, C., Zbinden, M., Pailleret, M. et al. Highly Similar Prokaryotic Communities of Sunken Wood at Shallow and Deep-Sea Sites Across the Oceans. Microb Ecol 58, 737–752 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-009-9538-4

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