Anja Kamp

The Marine Microbial Eukaryote Transcriptome Sequencing Project (MMETSP): Illuminating the Functional Diversity of Eukaryotic Life in the Oceans through Transcriptome Sequencing.

Current sampling of genomic sequence data from eukaryotes is relatively poor, biased, and inadequate to address important questions about their biology, evolution, and ecology; this Community Page describes a resource of 700 transcriptomes from marine microbial eukaryotes to help understand their role in the worlds oceans.

Diatoms respire nitrate to survive dark and anoxic conditions

Diatoms survive in dark, anoxic sediment layers for months to decades. Our investigation reveals a correlation between the dark survival potential of marine diatoms and their ability to accumulate NO3− intracellularly. Axenic strains of benthic and pelagic diatoms that stored 11–274 mM NO3− in their cells survived for 6–28 wk. After sudden shifts to dark, anoxic conditions, the benthic diatom Amphora coffeaeformis consumed 84–87% of its intracellular NO3− pool within 1 d. A stable-isotope labeling experiment proved that 15NO3− consumption was accompanied by the production and release of 15NH4+, indicating dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA). DNRA is an anaerobic respiration process that is known mainly from prokaryotic organisms, and here shown as dissimilatory nitrate reduction pathway used by a eukaryotic phototroph. Similar to large sulfur bacteria and benthic foraminifera, diatoms may respire intracellular NO3− in sediment layers without O2 and NO3−. The rapid depletion of the intracellular NO3− storage, however, implies that diatoms use DNRA to enter a resting stage for long-term survival. Assuming that pelagic diatoms are also capable of DNRA, senescing diatoms that sink through oxygen-deficient water layers may be a significant NH4+ source for anammox, the prevalent nitrogen loss pathway of oceanic oxygen minimum zones.

Anaerobic sulfide oxidation with nitrate by a freshwater Beggiatoa enrichment culture.

ABSTRACT A lithotrophic freshwater Beggiatoa strain was enriched in O2-H2S gradient tubes to investigate its ability to oxidize sulfide with NO3− as an alternative electron acceptor. The gradient tubes contained different NO3− concentrations, and the chemotactic response of the Beggiatoa mats was observed. The effects of the Beggiatoa sp. on vertical gradients of O2, H2S, pH, and NO3− were determined with microsensors. The more NO3− that was added to the agar, the deeper the Beggiatoa filaments glided into anoxic agar layers, suggesting that the Beggiatoa sp. used NO3− to oxidize sulfide at depths below the depth that O2 penetrated. In the presence of NO3−Beggiatoa formed thick mats (>8 mm), compared to the thin mats (ca. 0.4 mm) that were formed when no NO3− was added. These thick mats spatially separated O2 and sulfide but not NO3− and sulfide, and therefore NO3− must have served as the electron acceptor for sulfide oxidation. This interpretation is consistent with a fourfold-lower O2 flux and a twofold-higher sulfide flux into the NO3−-exposed mats compared to the fluxes for controls without NO3−. Additionally, a pronounced pH maximum was observed within the Beggiatoa mat; such a pH maximum is known to occur when sulfide is oxidized to S0 with NO3− as the electron acceptor.

Enhanced benthic activity in sandy sublittoral sediments: Evidence from 13C tracer experiments

Abstract In situ and on-board pulse-chase experiments were carried out on a sublittoral fine sand in the German Bight (southern North Sea) to investigate the hypothesis that sandy sediments are highly active and have fast turnover rates. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a series of experiments where we investigated the pathway of settling particulate organic carbon through the benthic food web. The diatom Ditylum brightwellii was labelled with the stable carbon isotope 13C and injected into incubation chambers. On-board incubations lasted 12, 30 and 132 h, while the in situ experiment was incubated for 32 h. The study revealed a stepwise short-term processing of a phytoplankton bloom settling on a sandy sediment. After the 12 h incubation, the largest fraction of recovered carbon was in the bacteria (62%), but after longer incubation times (30 and 32 h in situ) the macrofauna gained more importance (15 and 48%, respectively), until after 132 h the greatest fraction was mineralized to CO2 (44%). Our findings show the rapid impact of the benthic sand community on a settling phytoplankton bloom and the great importance of bacteria in the first steps of algal carbon processing.

Role of Diatoms in the Spatial-Temporal Distribution of Intracellular Nitrate in Intertidal Sediment

Intracellular nitrate storage allows microorganisms to survive fluctuating nutrient availability and anoxic conditions in aquatic ecosystems. Here we show that diatoms, ubiquitous and highly abundant microalgae, represent major cellular reservoirs of nitrate in an intertidal flat of the German Wadden Sea and are potentially involved in anaerobic nitrate respiration. Intracellular nitrate (ICNO3) was present year-round in the sediment and was spatially and temporally correlated with fucoxanthin, the marker photopigment of diatoms. Pyrosequencing of SSU rRNA genes of all domains of life confirmed that ICNO3 storage was most likely due to diatoms rather than other known nitrate-storing microorganisms (i.e., large sulfur bacteria and the eukaryotic foraminifers and gromiids). Sedimentary ICNO3 concentrations reached up to 22.3 µmol dm-3 at the sediment surface and decreased with sediment depth to negligible concentrations below 5 cm. Similarly, the ICNO3/fucoxanthin ratio and porewater nitrate (PWNO3) concentrations decreased with sediment depth, suggesting that ICNO3 of diatoms is in equilibrium with PWNO3, but is enriched relative to PWNO3 by 2-3 orders of magnitude. Cell-volume-specific ICNO3 concentrations in a diatom mat covering the sediment surface during spring were estimated at 9.3-46.7 mmol L-1. Retrieval of 18S rRNA gene sequences related to known nitrate-storing and nitrate-ammonifying diatom species suggested that diatoms in dark and anoxic sediment layers might be involved in anaerobic nitrate respiration. Due to the widespread dominance of diatoms in microphytobenthos, the total nitrate pool in coastal marine sediments may generally be at least two times larger than derived from porewater measurements and partially be recycled to ammonium.

Response of the ubiquitous pelagic diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii to darkness and anoxia.

Thalassiosira weissflogii, an abundant, nitrate-storing, bloom-forming diatom in the world’s oceans, can use its intracellular nitrate pool for dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) after sudden shifts to darkness and anoxia, most likely as a survival mechanism. T. weissflogii cells that stored 4 mM 15N-nitrate consumed 1.15 (±0.25) fmol NO3 - cell-1 h-1 and simultaneously produced 1.57 (±0.21) fmol 15NH4 + cell-1 h-1 during the first 2 hours of dark/anoxic conditions. Ammonium produced from intracellular nitrate was excreted by the cells, indicating a dissimilatory rather than assimilatory pathway. Nitrite and the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide were produced at rates 2-3 orders of magnitude lower than the ammonium production rate. While DNRA activity was restricted to the first few hours of darkness and anoxia, the subsequent degradation of photopigments took weeks to months, supporting the earlier finding that diatoms resume photosynthesis even after extended exposure to darkness and anoxia. Considering the high global abundance of T. weissflogii, its production of ammonium and nitrous oxide might be of ecological importance for oceanic oxygen minimum zones and the atmosphere, respectively.

Motility patterns of filamentous sulfur bacteria, Beggiatoa spp.

The large sulfur bacteria, Beggiatoa spp., live on the oxidation of sulfide with oxygen or nitrate, but avoid high concentrations of both sulfide and oxygen. As gliding filaments, they rely on reversals in the gliding direction to find their preferred environment, the oxygen-sulfide interface. We observed the chemotactic patterns of single filaments in a transparent agar medium and scored their reversals and the glided distances between reversals. Filaments within the preferred microenvironment glided distances shorter than their own length between reversals that anchored them in their position as a microbial mat. Filaments in the oxic region above the mat or in the sulfidic, anoxic region below the mat glided distances longer than the filament length between reversals. This reversal behavior resulted in a diffusion-like spreading of the filaments. A numerical model of such gliding filaments was constructed based on our observations. The model was applied to virtual filaments in the oxygen- and sulfide-free zone of the sediment, which is a main habitat of Beggiatoa in the natural environment. The model predicts a long residence time of the virtual filament in the suboxic zone and explains why Beggiatoa accumulate high nitrate concentrations in internal vacuoles as an alternative electron acceptor to oxygen.