Sulfur-cycling chemolithoautotrophic microbial community dominates a cold, anoxic, hypersaline Arctic spring ...

• Main Authors: Magnuson, Elisse, Altshuler, Ianina, Freyria, Nastasia J., Leveille, Richard J., Whyte, Lyle G.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: figshare 2023
• Subjects: Genetics; FOS: Biological sciences; Environmental Sciences not elsewhere classified; Ecology; Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified; Cancer; Inorganic Chemistry; FOS: Chemical sciences; Computational Biology; Nunavut; permafrost
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6830094.v1; https://springernature.figshare.com/collections/Sulfur-cycling_chemolithoautotrophic_microbial_community_dominates_a_cold_anoxic_hypersaline_Arctic_spring/6830094/1

Abstract Background Gypsum Hill Spring, located in Nunavut in the Canadian High Arctic, is a rare example of a cold saline spring arising through thick permafrost. It perennially discharges cold (~ 7 °C), hypersaline (7–8% salinity), anoxic (~ 0.04 ppm O2), and highly reducing (~ − 430 mV) brines rich in sulfate (2.2 g.L−1) and sulfide (9.5 ppm), making Gypsum Hill an analog to putative sulfate-rich briny habitats on extraterrestrial bodies such as Mars. Results Genome-resolved metagenomics and metatranscriptomics were utilized to describe an active microbial community containing novel metagenome-assembled genomes and dominated by sulfur-cycling Desulfobacterota and Gammaproteobacteria. Sulfate reduction was dominated by hydrogen-oxidizing chemolithoautotrophic Desulfovibrionaceae sp. and was identified in phyla not typically associated with sulfate reduction in novel lineages of Spirochaetota and Bacteroidota. Highly abundant and active sulfur-reducing Desulfuromusa sp. highly transcribed non-coding RNAs ...