Discrepant assembly processes of prokaryotic communities between the abyssal and hadal sediments in Yap Trench

Abstract

Abyssal and hadal sediments represent two of the most type ecosystems on Earth and have the potential interactions with geochemistry. However, little is known about the prokaryotic community assembly and the response of prokaryotic communities to metal(loid)s in trench sediments due to the lack of adequate and appropriate samples. In this study, a systematic investigation combined the assembly mechanisms and co-occurrence patterns of prokaryotic communities between the hadal and abyssal sediments across the Yap Trench. The results revealed that the hadal prokaryotes had less species diversity, but more abundant function than the abyssal prokaryotes. The prokaryotic communities in the abyssal sediments had more core taxa than the hadal sediments. Twenty-one biomarkers mostly affiliated with Nitrosopumilaceae were detected using Random-Forests machine learning algorithm. Furthermore, stochasticity was dominant in the prokaryotic community assembly processes of the Yap Trench sediments. Meanwhile, homogeneous selection (32.6%–52.9%) belonging to deterministic processes governed the prokaryotic community assembly in hadal sediments with increasing of sediment depth. In addition to total nitrogen and total organic carbon, more metal(loid)s were significantly correlated with the prokaryotic community in the hadal sediments than that in the abyssal sediments. The hadal prokaryotic communities was most positively related to bismuth (r = 0.31, p < 0.01), followed by calcium, chromium, cerium, potassium, plumbum, scandium, titanium, and vanadium. Finally, co-occurrence networks revealed two potential dominant prokaryotic modules in Yap Trench sediments covaried across oceanographic zonation. By contrast, the hadal network had relatively more complexity, more bacterial taxa, and more associations among prokaryotic taxa, relative to the abyssal network. This study reveals potentially metal variables and community assembly mechanisms of the prokaryotic community in abyssal and hadal sediments and provides a better understanding on the prokaryotic diversity and ecology in trench sediment ecosystems.