AUTHOR=Lindh Markus V. , Maillot Brianne M. , Shulse Christine N. , Gooday Andrew J. , Amon Diva J. , Smith Craig R. , Church Matthew J. TITLE=From the Surface to the Deep-Sea: Bacterial Distributions across Polymetallic Nodule Fields in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology VOLUME=8 YEAR=2017 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2017.01696 DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2017.01696 ISSN=1664-302X ABSTRACT=
Marine bacteria regulate fluxes of matter and energy essential for pelagic and benthic organisms and may also be involved in the formation and maintenance of commercially valuable abyssal polymetallic nodules. Future mining of these nodule fields is predicted to have substantial effects on biodiversity and physicochemical conditions in mined areas. Yet, the identity and distributions of bacterial populations in deep-sea sediments and associated polymetallic nodules has received relatively little attention. We examined bacterial communities using high-throughput sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA gene fragments from samples collected in the water column, sediment, and polymetallic nodules in the Pacific Ocean (bottom depth ≥4,000 m) in the eastern Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Operational taxonomic units (OTUs; defined at 99% 16S rRNA gene identity) affiliated with JTB255 (Gammaproteobacteria) and