A variety of Microbial Mats cover the Chimney Walls of the Loki's Castle Hydrothermal Field

Active vent chimneys of the Loki’s castle hydrothermal field at 73°N are the most northerly black smokers ever located. Vent fluids reach temperatures of >300°C, have a pH of around 5.5 and high concentrations of reduced compounds representing important energy sources for microbial life. Particularly they are extremely rich in methane (13.5 mM) and hydrogen (4.9 mM) while hydrogen sulphide concentrations are more typical for black smoker fluids (4.1 mM). Another characteristic of Loki’s castle is the unusually high abundance of microbial mats on the exterior of the chimneys. During a cruise in 2009 we used a ROV equipped with a hydraulic sampling cylinder (biosyringe) to collect samples of five mats varying in color and texture. Pyrosequencing of amplified 16S rRNA gene sequences yielded 9000 - 25000 reads per sample. Although all mats were dominated by a relatively low number of OTUs, we observed large differences in microbial composition, richness, and evenness of the mats. Also, the most dominating metabolic process occurring in each mat seemed to vary considerably. Two of the mats were largely dominated (60-90% of the reads) by relatives of mesophilic sulfur oxidizing ɛ-Proteobacteria (e.g. Sulfurovum) while another mat was dominated (48 % of the reads) by organisms affiliated with methanotrophic Methylococcales. In the last two mats we found a high abundance ( >20% - >40% of the reads) of organisms clustering among thermophilic organisms such as Thermodesulfobacteriales, Archaeoglobales, Thermococcales, Thermotogales, and Aquificales. The observed variation of the microbial composition between the different mats is possibly linked to variations in temperature and chemistry of fluids diffusely venting from the chimney. The study was supplemented by pyrosequencing of environmental cDNA from three of the samples (totally 1 100 000 reads). This dataset, which is currently being analyzed, will provide more information about the most active phylotypes in the microbial mats, and give further insight about the major in situ microbial processes occurring in these environments.