Abstract
Seagrass colonization alters sediment physicochemical properties by depositing seagrass fibers and releasing organic carbon and oxygen from the roots. How this seagrass colonization-induced spatial heterogeneity affects archaeal community structure and abundance remains unclear. In this study, we investigated archaeal abundance, diversity, and composition in both vegetated and adjacent bare surface sediments of a Zostera marina meadow. High-throughput sequencing of 16S rDNA showed that Woesearchaeota, Bathyarchaeota, and Thaumarchaeota were the most abundant phyla across all samples, accounting for approximately 42%, 21%, and 17% of the total archaeal communities, respectively. In terms of relative abundance, Woesearchaeota and Bathyarchaeota were not significantly different between these two niches; however, specific subclades (Woese-3, Woese-21, Bathy-6, Bathy-18) were significantly enriched in vegetated sediments (P < 0.05), while Thaumarchaeota was favored in unvegetated sites (P = 0.02). The quantification of archaeal 16S rRNA genes showed that the absolute abundance of the whole archaeal community, Bathyarchaeota, and Woese-3, Woese-10, Woese-13, and Woese-21 was significantly more abundant in vegetated sediments than in bare sediments (P < 0.05). Our study expands the available knowledge of the distribution patterns and niche preferences of archaea in seagrass systems, especially for the different subclades of Woesearchaeota and Bathyarchaeota, in terms of both relative proportions and absolute quantities.
Highlights
Seagrass meadows support high primary productivity, playing an essential role in shaping coastal ecology [1]
High-throughput sequencing results showed that archaeal communities in the Z. marina seagrass meadow sediments were highly represented by Woesearchaeota, which was inconsistent with the results obtained in the Z. noltii meadow sediments based on clone library [11], in which most archaeal sequences were phylogenetically associated with Methanobacteria
We first analyzed the diversity of archaea in a Z. marina seagrass meadow and evaluated the influence of seagrass colonization on archaeal community structures and abundance through high-throughput sequencing and Quantitative Real-Time PCR (qPCR) technologies
Summary
Seagrass meadows support high primary productivity, playing an essential role in shaping coastal ecology [1]. During photosynthesis, the roots release a portion of O2 to sediments, which creates a microzone of elevated oxygen concentrations in rhizosphere sediments compared with surrounding unvegetated sediments [5, 6]. These geochemical characteristics of the seagrass rhizosphere may significantly affect the spatial distribution and ecological function of both bacteria and archaea [7]. A greater abundance of the total bacterial community, increased sulfate-reducing activities [8, 9], and higher diversity and abundance of specific bacterial lineages (e.g., diazotrophs) [10] were usually detected in vegetated sediments compared with unvegetated sediments, though the overall bacterial community structure was not Archaea significantly different between these two niches [10]. Little is known about archaeal diversity and spatial distributions in seagrass ecosystems
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