Comparative Metagenomics of Eight Geographically Remote Terrestrial Hot Springs
- Menzel, Peter [ Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen ]
- Gudbergsdottir, Soley Ruth [ Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen ]
- Rike, Anne Gunn [ Norwegian Geotechnical Institute ]
- Lin, Lianbing [ Biotechnology Research Center, Kunming University of Science & Technology ]
- Zhang, Qi [ Biotechnology Research Center, Kunming University of Science & Technology ]
- Contursi, Patrizia [ Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II†]
- Moracci, Marco [ Department of Biology, Agriculture & Food Science, Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources ]
- Kristjansson, Jakob K. [ Prokazyme ehf ]
- Bolduc, Benjamin [ Montana State University: Chemistry & Biochemistry ]
- Gavrilov, Sergey [ Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Russian Academy of Sciences ]
- Ravin, Nikolai [ Bioengineering Center, Russian Academy of Sciences ]
- Mardanov, Andrey [ Bioengineering Center, Russian Academy of Sciences ]
- Bonch-Osmolovskaya, Elizaveta [ Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Russian Academy of Sciences ]
- Young, Mark [ Montana State University: Plant Sciences & Plant Pathology ]
- Krogh, Anders [ Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen ]
- Peng, Xu [ Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen ]
Hot springs are natural habitats for thermophilic Archaea and Bacteria. In this paper, we present the metagenomic analysis of eight globally distributed terrestrial hot springs from China, Iceland, Italy, Russia, and the USA with a temperature range between 61 and 92 ∘C and pH between 1.8 and 7. A comparison of the biodiversity and community composition generally showed a decrease in biodiversity with increasing temperature and decreasing pH. Another important factor shaping microbial diversity of the studied sites was the abundance of organic substrates. Several species of the Crenarchaeal order Thermoprotei were detected, whereas no single bacterial species was found in all samples, suggesting a better adaptation of certain archaeal species to different thermophilic environments. Two hot springs show high abundance of Acidithiobacillus, supporting the idea of a true thermophilic Acidithiobacillus species that can thrive in hyperthermophilic environments. Depending on the sample, up to 58 % of sequencing reads could not be assigned to a known phylum, reinforcing the fact that a large number of microorganisms in nature, including those thriving in hot environments remain to be isolated and characterized.