15 research outputs found

    Microbial long distance electron transfer in contaminated aquifers.

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    In marine sediments, filamentous Desulfobulbaceae have been shown to bridge sulfide oxidation and oxygen reduction over centimeter distances. The spatially separated redox half reactions lead to an alkaline pH where protons are consumed by oxygen reduction and to an acidic pH where sulfide is oxidized to sulfate. To analyze if long distance electron transfer occurs in contaminated groundwater we set up batch experiments with natural sediments amended with FeS as electron donor. After 2-3 months, the pore water showed pH, oxygen, and sulfide gradients characteristic of long distance electron transfer of 4-20 mm. Spatially resolved analysis of the microbial communities by tRFLP and 454 pyrosequencing indicated a relative abundance of Desulfobulbaceae of up to 45% within the suboxic zone. Fluorescence in situ hybridization revealed that the sequences belonged to filamentous Desulfobulbaceae. We then took intact sediment cores from the capillary fringe of a tar oil contaminated aquifer at 7 meters depth and analyzed the microbial communities at cm resolution. The filamentous Desulfobulbaceae were not only present in situ but accounted for up to 27% Desulfobulbaceae of the total bacterial numbers. An estimate of the total abundance showed about 3-4 m filamentous Desulfobulbaceae per ml sediment. These results suggest long distance electron transfer naturally occurs in contaminated aquifers and might be an important process in the recycling of the electron acceptor sulfate. Thus, the newly discovered process might be important in increasing degradation rates close to the capillary fringe

    Long-distance electron transfer by cable bacteria in aquifer sediments.

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    The biodegradation of organic pollutants in aquifers is often restricted to the fringes of contaminant plumes where steep countergradients of electron donors and acceptors are separated by limited dispersive mixing. However, long-distance electron transfer (LDET) by filamentous 'cable bacteria' has recently been discovered in marine sediments to couple spatially separated redox half reactions over centimeter scales. Here we provide primary evidence that such sulfur-oxidizing cable bacteria can also be found at oxic-anoxic interfaces in aquifer sediments, where they provide a means for the direct recycling of sulfate by electron transfer over 1-2-cm distance. Sediments were taken from a hydrocarbon-contaminated aquifer, amended with iron sulfide and saturated with water, leaving the sediment surface exposed to air. Steep geochemical gradients developed in the upper 3 cm, showing a spatial separation of oxygen and sulfide by 9 mm together with a pH profile characteristic for sulfur oxidation by LDET. Bacterial filaments, which were highly abundant in the suboxic zone, were identified by sequencing of 16S rRNA genes and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) as cable bacteria belonging to the Desulfobulbaceae. The detection of similar Desulfobulbaceae at the oxic-anoxic interface of fresh sediment cores taken at a contaminated aquifer suggests that LDET may indeed be active at the capillary fringe in situ

    Fine-scale measurements of diffusivity in a microbial mat with NMR imaging

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    Noninvasive 1H-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging was used to investigate the diffusive properties of microbial mats in two dimensions. Pulsed field gradient NMR was used to acquire images of the H2O diffusion coefficient, Ds and multiecho imaging NMR was used to obtain images of the water density in two structurally different microbial mats sampled from Solar Lake (Egypt). We found a pronounced lateral and vertical variability of both water density and water diffusion coefficient, correlated with the laminated and heterogeneous distribution of microbial cells and exopolymers within the mats. The average water density varied from 0.5 to 0.9, whereas the average water diffusion coefficient ranged from 0.4 to 0.9 relative to the values obtained in the stagnant water above the mat samples. The apparent water diffusivities estimated from NMR imaging compared well to apparent O2 diffusivities measured with a diffusivity microsensor. Analysis of measured O2 concentration profiles with a diffusion-reaction model showed that both the magnitude of calculated rates and the depth distribution of calculated O2 consumption/production zones changed when the observed variations of diffusivity were taken into account. With NMR imaging, diffusivity can be determined at high spatial resolution, which can resolve inherent lateral and vertical heterogeneities found in most natural benthic systems

    Tracing long-distance electron transfer and cable bacteria in freshwater sediments by agar pillar gradient columns.

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    Cable bacteria (CB) perform electrogenic sulphur oxidation (e-SOX) by spatially separating redox-half-reactions over cm-distances. For freshwater systems, the ecology of CB is not yet well understood, partly because they proved difficult to cultivate. This study introduces a new "agar pillar" approach to selectively enrich and investigate CB-populations. Within sediment columns, a central agar pillar is embedded, providing a sediment-free gradient-system in equilibrium with the surrounding sediment. We incubated freshwater sediments from a streambed, a sulfidic lake, and a hydrocarbon polluted aquifer in such agar pillar columns. Microprofiling revealed typical patterns of e-SOx, such as the development of a suboxic zone and the establishment of electric potentials. The bacterial communities in the sediments and agar pillars were analysed over depth by PacBio near-full-length 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, allowing for a precise phylogenetic placement of taxa detected. The selective niche of the agar pillar was preferentially colonized by CB related to Candidatus Electronema for surface-water sediments, including several potentially novel species, but not for putative groundwater CB affiliated with Desulfurivibrio spp. The presence of CB was seemingly linked to co-enriched fermenters, hinting at a possible role of e-SOx-populations as an electron sink for heterotrophic microbes. These findings add to our current understanding of the diversity and ecology of CB in freshwater systems, and to a discrimination of CB from surface and groundwater sediments. The agar pillar approach provides a new strategy that may facilitate the cultivation of redox gradient-dependent microorganisms, including previously unrecognized CB populations

    Fine-scale measurements of diffusivity in a microbial mat with NMR imaging

    No full text
    Noninvasive 1H-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging was used to investigate the diffusive properties of microbial mats in two dimensions. Pulsed field gradient NMR was used to acquire images of the H2O diffusion coefficient, Ds and multiecho imaging NMR was used to obtain images of the water density in two structurally different microbial mats sampled from Solar Lake (Egypt). We found a pronounced lateral and vertical variability of both water density and water diffusion coefficient, correlated with the laminated and heterogeneous distribution of microbial cells and exopolymers within the mats. The average water density varied from 0.5 to 0.9, whereas the average water diffusion coefficient ranged from 0.4 to 0.9 relative to the values obtained in the stagnant water above the mat samples. The apparent water diffusivities estimated from NMR imaging compared well to apparent O2 diffusivities measured with a diffusivity microsensor. Analysis of measured O2 concentration profiles with a diffusion-reaction model showed that both the magnitude of calculated rates and the depth distribution of calculated O2 consumption/production zones changed when the observed variations of diffusivity were taken into account. With NMR imaging, diffusivity can be determined at high spatial resolution, which can resolve inherent lateral and vertical heterogeneities found in most natural benthic systems

    ATLAS: technical proposal for a general-purpose p p experiment at the large hadron collider at CERN

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