Microbial diversity in the deep-sea sediments of Iheya North and Iheya Ridge, Okinawa Trough

Abstract

In this study, we analyzed the bacterial and archaeal diversities of the deep-sea sediments in Iheya North and Iheya Ridge, Okinawa Trough, using the high-throughput sequencing technology of Illumina MiSeq 2500 platform. Four samples (IN1, IN2, IR1 and IR2) were used in this study, of which IN1 and IN2 were located at regions close to and distant, respectively, from the active hydrothermal vents in Iheya North, while IR1 and IR2 were located at regions close to and distant, respectively, from the active hydrothermal vents in Iheya Ridge. The four samples were rich in different metal elements. Sequence analysis based on the V3–V4 regions of 16S rDNA gene obtained 170,363 taxon tags, including 122,920 bacterial tags and 47,433 archaeal tags, which cover 31 phyla, 50 classes, 59 orders, 87 families, and 138 genera. Overall, the microbial communities in all samples were dominated by bacteria, in which Proteobacteria was the largest phylum, followed by Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, and Nitrospirae, which together accounted for 64.6% of the total taxon tags. In contrast to the high bacterial diversities, the archaeal diversity was low and dominated by Thaumarchaeota, which accounted for 22.9% of the total taxon tags. Comparative analysis showed that (i) IN2 and IR2 exhibited more microbial richness than IN1 and IR1, (ii) IR1 and IR2 exhibited higher microbial diversities than IN1 and IN2, (iii) samples from Iheya Ridge and Iheya North fell into two groups based on principle component analysis. Furthermore, microbes potentially involved in sulfur, nitrogen, and metal metabolism and cycling were detected in all samples. These results provide for the first time a comparative picture of the microbial diversities in the sediments of Iheya North and Iheya Ridge and indicate that geological features and distance from active hydrothermal vents likely play important roles in the shaping of microbial community structure.