Collaborative Research: From hot to cold in the dark - shifts in seafloor massive sulfide microbial communities as physical and geochemical conditions change after venting ceases

合作研究：在黑暗中从热到冷——排气停止后，随着物理和地球化学条件的变化，海底大量硫化物微生物群落发生变化

• 批准号: 1756419
• 负责人: Margaret Tivey
• 金额: $ 12.86万
• 依托单位: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2023-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1756419&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; hot; cold; dark

Hydrothermal vents, which deposit seafloor massive sulfides (SMS), occur along the 89,000 km of mid-ocean ridges, submarine volcanoes, and backarc basins that occur at tectonic plate boundaries in the ocean. Active hydrothermal vent sulfide chimneys are hotspots of biodiversity and productivity in the deep ocean, as well as potential resources for metals. While significant effort has focused on understanding the diversity of biological communities and geochemistry associated with actively venting SMS, relatively little is known about the biological communities associated with SMS once venting ceases. Furthermore, little is known about the microbiological and geochemical changes that occur during the transition period from active to inactive, during which an important succession occurs in the microbial community and geochemistry of fluids within the chimney. This interdisciplinary project will create and sample this transition period by collecting multiple active SMS samples from individual vents at 9 degrees N East Pacific Rise and allowing them to transition to inactive on the seafloor, mimicking the end of venting while allowing for the exact time when venting ceased to be known, something not possible when sampling naturally formed inactive SMS. Microbial community diversity and metabolism will be analyzed in parallel with bulk and fine-scale geological measurements for active, transitioning, and inactive sulfides. This seafloor experimental and analytical approach will provide knowledge of how microbial communities, rates of biogeochemical transformations, and geological conditions change as SMS transition from hot and actively venting to cold and inactive. Students in grades 6-8 will be entrained into the project through research cruise "ship-to-shore" interactions and communications, post-cruise workshops for educators working with students typically underrepresented in STEM fields, and a collaboration with the Science, Engineering, Art and Design Gallery (SEAD), a community and economic development project in Bryan, TX. Hydrothermal vents are quantitatively important to the biology and chemistry of the deep ocean, but the vast majority of current knowledge focuses on actively venting deposits. However, after venting ceases, sulfides can persist on the seafloor for tens of thousands of years, making them long-lived, globally-abundant microbial substrates. In recent years, studies of inactive SMS found drastically different microbial communities than those on active deposits, indicating a succession of the microbial community, and thus a potentially different impact on deep ocean biodiversity and biogeochemistry than actively venting deposits. However, ages of the inactive structures are often not known, so it is impossible to estimate how quickly these changes occur, and how quickly co-occurring changes in sulfide mineralogy and microbiological communities occur. This project will provide the first insight into what happens at the microbial and mineralogical level as SMS initially transition from active to inactive. Active SMS will be sampled and analyzed for microbial community composition, functional capacity, gene expression and metabolic rates. Co-located subsamples will be analyzed for porosity and bulk and fine-scale mineralogy. Subsamples of those active SMS samples will be left on the seafloor to incubate and be collected weeks and a year or more later, with the same analyses conducted upon collection. This will allow for determination of microbiological and mineralogical changes that occur during that initial transition and for comparison with older inactive SMS from the same vent fields. Together, the data collected will be integrated to generate a conceptual model of succession of biology, mineralogy, porosity and pore distribution as vent deposits transition from active to inactive. This project will fill a knowledge gap about hydrothermal ecosystems and has the potential to transform the current understanding of diversity and rates of change in these important seafloor biomes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

热液喷口沿 89,000 公里的洋中脊、海底火山和海洋构造板块边界的弧后盆地沉积，沉积海底块状硫化物 (SMS)。活跃热液喷口硫化物烟囱是深海生物多样性和生产力的热点，也是潜在的金属资源。虽然人们付出了大量努力来了解与主动排放 SMS 相关的生物群落和地球化学的多样性，但一旦排放停止，人们对与 SMS 相关的生物群落知之甚少。此外，人们对从活跃到不活跃的过渡期间发生的微生物和地球化学变化知之甚少，在此期间烟囱内的微生物群落和流体地球化学发生了重要的演替。这个跨学科项目将通过从东太平洋海隆北纬 9 度的各个喷口收集多个活跃 SMS 样本来创建并采样这个过渡期，并允许它们在海底过渡到不活跃状态，模仿喷口结束，同时允许准确的喷口时间不再为人所知，这在对自然形成的非活动 SMS 进行采样时是不可能的。将分析微生物群落多样性和代谢，同时对活性、过渡和非活性硫化物进行批量和精细地质测量。这种海底实验和分析方法将提供有关微生物群落、生物地球化学转化率和地质条件如何随着 SMS 从炎热和活跃的通风转变为寒冷和不活跃的转变的知识。 6-8 年级的学生将通过研究巡航“船到岸”互动和交流、为教育工作者举办的巡航后研讨会、与 STEM 领域中代表性不足的学生合作以及与科学、工程、艺术与设计画廊（SEAD）是德克萨斯州布莱恩的一个社区和经济发展项目。热液喷口对于深海的生物学和化学具有重要的数量意义，但目前的绝大多数知识都集中在主动喷口沉积物上。然而，在喷发停止后，硫化物可以在海底持续存在数万年，使其成为寿命长、全球丰富的微生物基质。近年来，对非活跃SMS的研究发现，微生物群落与活跃沉积物上的微生物群落截然不同，这表明微生物群落是连续的，因此对深海生物多样性和生物地球化学的潜在影响与活跃的喷发沉积物不同。然而，不活跃结构的年龄通常是未知的，因此无法估计这些变化发生的速度以及硫化物矿物学和微生物群落同时发生的变化的速度。该项目将首次深入了解 SMS 最初从活性转变为非活性时在微生物和矿物学层面上发生的情况。将对主动 SMS 进行采样并分析微生物群落组成、功能能力、基因表达和代谢率。将分析同一地点的子样本的孔隙度以及块体和细粒度矿物学。这些活跃 SMS 样本的子样本将留在海底进行孵化，并在数周、一年或更长时间后收集，并在收集时进行相同的分析。这将允许确定在初始过渡期间发生的微生物和矿物学变化，并与来自相同喷口场的较旧的非活动 SMS 进行比较。收集到的数据将被整合起来，生成一个随着喷口沉积物从活跃过渡到不活跃的生物学、矿物学、孔隙度和孔隙分布连续性的概念模型。该项目将填补有关热液生态系统的知识空白，并有可能改变目前对这些重要海底生物群落多样性和变化率的理解。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识进行评估，被认为值得支持。优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。

项目成果

Inactive hydrothermal vent microbial communities are important contributors to deep ocean primary productivity

不活跃的热液喷口微生物群落是深海初级生产力的重要贡献者

• DOI: 10.1038/s41564-024-01599-9
• 发表时间: 2024-01
• 期刊: Nature Microbiology
• 影响因子: 28.3
• 作者: Achberger, Amanda M.;Jones, Rose;Jamieson, John;Holmes, Charles P.;Schubotz, Florence;Meyer, Nicolette R.;Dekas, Anne E.;Moriarty, Sarah;Reeves, Eoghan P.;Manthey, Ale;et al
• 通讯作者: et al