Alien species invasion of deep-sea bacteria into terrestrial soil

Abstract

Alien species invasion is spreading all over the world, endangering the biodiversity and ecological security of the invasive areas. However, the invasion of alien species from inaccessible areas for humans, such as deep sea a largely unexplored ancient area, has not been explored so far. To address the possibility of alien species invasion of deep-sea bacteria into terrestrial soil, the bacteria were isolated from each of 106 deep-sea sediments on a global scale in this study. The results showed that the bacteria isolated from each of 15 deep-sea sediments altered the bacterial communities of terrestrial loam and further led to the damage of soil functions. As an example, a bacterium, identified to be Bacillus meqaterium DP060, was isolated from deep-sea sediment DP060. The results revealed that Bacillus meqaterium DP060 could proliferate in the terrestrial soil to alter the soil bacterial community and subsequent the soil functions, thus yielding alien species invasion. The deep-sea bacteria with the potential of alien species invasion were broadly distributed in deep-sea bottoms of oceans. Therefore, our study provides the first basic biosecurity insight into alien species invasion of deep-sea bacteria into the terrestrial soil and the biosecurity of deep-sea microorganisms should be assessed when performing the scientific researches and the exploration and exploitation of resources in deep sea.