Variations in community structure and diversity associated with methane-rich sediments offshore southwestern Taiwan

Subseafloor sediments have been estimated to harbor more than 50% of the global prokaryotic cells. Such a large quantity of biomass has been considered to play an important role in regulating the elemental cycling between hydrosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere. On the basis of pore water geochemistry and molecular results, numerous studies have demonstrated that sulfate reduction, anaerobic methanotrophy, and methanogenesis appear to be the essential metabolic pathways controlling the organic mineralization and methane cycling in sediments of continental margins. As the extent of microbial community varies from site to site, spatial variations in community structures directly or indirectly catalyzing these metabolic pathways remain to be elucidated. This study aims to uncover community structures along a sediment core collected offshore southwestern Taiwan where the convergence between the Eurasian and Philippine Sea Plates leads to the rapid accumulation of sediments eroded from onshore mountainous regions. The samples were obtained at a 50-cm interval from a gravity core which penetrated to 5 m below seafloor. Crude DNA was extracted and the V4-V6 and V4-V5 regions of 16S rRNA genes in bacteria and archaea were amplified using the barcoded primers, respectively. The amplicons were pooled for sequencing on a Roche GS Junior platform. A total of more than 130,000 bacterial and archaeal reads each were obtained after the processing of raw data for quality check, and chimera, barcode and primer removals. The output reads were clustered into different OTU on the basis of 97% similarity and taxonomically categorized against the Silva database. Despite a significant proportion of sequences whose taxonomical assignments remain to be resolved, sequences affiliated with Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Chloroflexi within Bacteria, and Thermoplasmata, MBG-B, ANME-1, and MCG within Archaea outnumber the other lineages. The proportions of major OTUs exhibit different trends of variation along the profile, suggesting that the imposed redox and geochemical gradients are critical factors in shaping the community structures. In particular, anaerobic methanotrophs affiliated with ANME-1 and -2 are more abundant in and below the sulfate-to-methane transition zone, a pattern consistent with the geochemical interpretation. In contrast, DSS/DBB lineages conventionally thought to be the syntrophic partners of ANME members for anaerobic methanotrophy were not detected. Potential sulfate reducers affiliated with Desulfobacteraceae were recovered throughout the cores. Detailed investigations on primer bias, taxonomic assignment and community pattern are undergoing.