New bacteria groups, and stunning diversity, discovered underground
One of the most detailed genomic studies of any ecosystem to date has revealed an underground world of stunning microbial diversity, and added dozens of new branches to the tree of life.
The bacterial bonanza comes from scientists who reconstructed the genomes of more than 2,500 microbes from sediment and groundwater samples collected at an aquifer in Colorado. The effort was led by researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley. DNA sequencing was performed at the Joint Genome Institute, a DOE Office of Science User Facility.
As reported online October 24 in the journal Nature Communications, the scientists netted genomes from 80 percent of all known bacterial phyla, a remarkable degree of biological diversity at one location. They also discovered 47 new phylum-level bacterial groups, naming many of them after influential microbiologists and other scientists. And they learned new insights about how microbial communities work together to drive processes that are critical to the planet’s climate and life everywhere, such as the carbon and nitrogen cycles.
Karthik Anantharaman, Christopher T. Brown, Laura A. Hug, Itai Sharon, Cindy J. Castelle, Alexander J. Probst, Brian C. Thomas, Andrea Singh, Michael J. Wilkins, Ulas Karaoz, Eoin L. Brodie, Kenneth H. Williams, Susan S. Hubbard, Jillian F. Banfield. Thousands of microbial genomes shed light on interconnected biogeochemical processes in an aquifer system. Nature Communications, 2016; 7: 13219 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13219
Stunning diversity, visualized. All the known major bacterial groups are represented by wedges in this circular “tree of life.” The bigger wedges are more diverse groups. Green wedges are groups that have not been genomically sampled at the Rifle site–everything else has. Black wedges are previously identified bacteria groups that have also been found at Rifle. Purple wedges are groups discovered at Rifle and announced last year. Red wedges are new groups discovered in this study. Colored dots represent important metabolic processes the new groups help mediate. Credit: Banfield Group
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