Bacterial and Archaeal Water and Sediment Communities of Two Hot Spring Streams in Tengchong, Yunnan Province, China

Abstract

In Tengchong County, springs with wide physicochemical diversity provide a multitude of niches for extremophilic microorganisms. In this study, eight middle-low temperature spring sites along two continuous small streams with low water flow and slow speed in the fourth geothermal experience area of Rehai scenic spot were chosen, and geochemical characteristics and HTS of the 16S rRNA V4 region were used to analyze the prokaryotic community structure and diversity in the water and sediment of these sites. The effect of environmental factors on the microbial communities was explored via redundancy analysis (RDA). All sediment samples had higher alpha diversity values than the corresponding water samples. Twenty-five phyla were annotated; Euryarchaeota, Crenarchaeota, Aquificae, Thermotogae and Proteobacteria were the dominant phyla, accounting for 95.31% of all prokaryotes, with relative abundances above 5%. Aquificae dominated in water samples, while Euryarchaeota dominated in sediment samples. RDA indicated that temperature was the main factor influencing the microbial communities in the two streams. The study expands the current understanding of the microbiology of Tengchong hot springs and provides a basis for further mining of hot spring microbial and functional gene resources.