Diversity of Archaea in Marine Sediments from Skan Bay, Alaska, Including Cultivated Methanogens, and Description of Methanogenium boonei sp. nov

• Published in: Applied and Environmental Microbiology
• Main Authors: Kendall, Melissa M., Wardlaw, George D., Tang, Chin F., Bonin, Adam S., Liu, Yitai, Valentine, David L.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Society for Microbiology 2007
• Subjects: Methane hydrate; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/aem.01154-06; https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/AEM.01154-06

ABSTRACT Methanogenesis in cold marine sediments is a globally important process leading to methane hydrate deposits, cold seeps, physical instability of sediment, and atmospheric methane emissions. We employed a multidisciplinary approach that combined culture-dependent and -independent analyses with geochemical measurements in the sediments of Skan Bay, Alaska (53°N, 167°W), to investigate methanogenesis there. Cultivation-independent analyses of the archaeal community revealed that uncultivated microbes of the kingdoms Euryarchaeota and Crenarchaeota are present at Skan Bay and that methanogens constituted a small proportion of the archaeal community. Methanogens were cultivated from depths of 0 to 60 cm in the sediments, and several strains related to the orders Methanomicrobiales and Methanosarcinales were isolated. Isolates were psychrotolerant marine-adapted strains and included an aceticlastic methanogen, strain AK-6, as well as three strains of CO 2 -reducing methanogens: AK-3, AK7, and AK-8. The phylogenetic positions and physiological characteristics of these strains are described. We propose a new species, Methanogenium boonei , with strain AK-7 as the type strain.