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Karwautz C, Zhou Y, Kerros ME, Weinbauer MG, Griebler C. Bottom-Up Control of the Groundwater Microbial Food-Web in an Alpine Aquifer. Front Ecol Evol 2022. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2022.854228] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Groundwater ecosystems are typically poor in organic carbon and productivity sustaining a low standing stock of microbial biomass. In consequence, microbial food webs in oligotrophic groundwater are hypothesized to be bottom-up controlled. To date, quantitative information on groundwater microbial communities, food web interactions, and carbon flow is relatively lacking in comparison to that of surface waters. Studying a shallow, porous alpine aquifer we collected data on the numbers of prokaryotes, virus-like particles and heterotrophic nanoflagellates (HNFs), the concentration of dissolved (DOC) and assimilable organic carbon (AOC), bacterial carbon production (BCP), and physical-chemical conditions for a 1 year hydrological cycle. The potential effects of protozoan grazing and viral lysis onto the prokaryotic biomass was tested. Flow of organic carbon through the microbial food web was estimated based on data from the literature. The abundance of prokaryotes in groundwater was low with 6.1 ± 6.9 × 104 cells mL–1, seasonally influenced by the hydrological dynamics, with higher densities coinciding with a lower groundwater table. Overall, the variability in cell numbers was moderate, and so it was for HNFs (179 ± 103 HNFs mL–1) and virus-like particles (9.6 ± 5.7 × 105 VLPs mL–1). The virus to prokaryotes and prokaryote to HNF ratios ranged between 2–230 and 33–2,084, respectively. We found no evidence for a viral control of prokaryotic biomass, and the biomass of HNFs being bottom-up controlled. First estimations point at carbon use efficiencies of 0.2–4.2% with prokaryotic production, and carbon consumed and recycled by HNFs and phages to be of minor importance. This first groundwater microbial food web analysis strongly hints at a bottom-up control on productivity and standing stock in oligotrophic groundwater ecosystems. However, direct measurement of protozoan grazing and phage mediated lysis rates of prokaryotic cells are urgently needed to deepen our mechanistic understanding. The effect of microbial diversity on the population dynamics still needs to be addressed.
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Lesaulnier CC, Herbold CW, Pelikan C, Berry D, Gérard C, Le Coz X, Gagnot S, Niggemann J, Dittmar T, Singer GA, Loy A. Bottled aqua incognita: microbiota assembly and dissolved organic matter diversity in natural mineral waters. MICROBIOME 2017; 5:126. [PMID: 28938908 PMCID: PMC5610417 DOI: 10.1186/s40168-017-0344-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2017] [Accepted: 09/15/2017] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Non-carbonated natural mineral waters contain microorganisms that regularly grow after bottling despite low concentrations of dissolved organic matter (DOM). Yet, the compositions of bottled water microbiota and organic substrates that fuel microbial activity, and how both change after bottling, are still largely unknown. RESULTS We performed a multifaceted analysis of microbiota and DOM diversity in 12 natural mineral waters from six European countries. 16S rRNA gene-based analyses showed that less than 10 species-level operational taxonomic units (OTUs) dominated the bacterial communities in the water phase and associated with the bottle wall after a short phase of post-bottling growth. Members of the betaproteobacterial genera Curvibacter, Aquabacterium, and Polaromonas (Comamonadaceae) grew in most waters and represent ubiquitous, mesophilic, heterotrophic aerobes in bottled waters. Ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry of DOM in bottled waters and their corresponding source waters identified thousands of molecular formulae characteristic of mostly refractory, soil-derived DOM. CONCLUSIONS The bottle environment, including source water physicochemistry, selected for growth of a similar low-diversity microbiota across various bottled waters. Relative abundance changes of hundreds of multi-carbon molecules were related to growth of less than ten abundant OTUs. We thus speculate that individual bacteria cope with oligotrophic conditions by simultaneously consuming diverse DOM molecules.
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Affiliation(s)
- Celine C Lesaulnier
- Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science, Division of Microbial Ecology, Research Network Chemistry meets Microbiology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090, Vienna, Austria
| | - Craig W Herbold
- Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science, Division of Microbial Ecology, Research Network Chemistry meets Microbiology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090, Vienna, Austria
| | - Claus Pelikan
- Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science, Division of Microbial Ecology, Research Network Chemistry meets Microbiology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090, Vienna, Austria
| | - David Berry
- Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science, Division of Microbial Ecology, Research Network Chemistry meets Microbiology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090, Vienna, Austria
| | - Cédric Gérard
- Nestec Ltd., Route du Jorat 57, CH-1000, Lausanne 26, Switzerland
| | - Xavier Le Coz
- Nestec Ltd., Route du Jorat 57, CH-1000, Lausanne 26, Switzerland
| | - Sophie Gagnot
- Nestec Ltd., Route du Jorat 57, CH-1000, Lausanne 26, Switzerland
| | - Jutta Niggemann
- University of Oldenburg, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, ICBM-MPI Bridging Group for Marine Geochemistry, Carl-von-Ossietzky-Straße 9-11, D-26129, Oldenburg, Germany
| | - Thorsten Dittmar
- University of Oldenburg, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, ICBM-MPI Bridging Group for Marine Geochemistry, Carl-von-Ossietzky-Straße 9-11, D-26129, Oldenburg, Germany
| | - Gabriel A Singer
- Department of Ecohydrology, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Müggelseedamm 310, D-12587, Berlin, Germany
| | - Alexander Loy
- Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science, Division of Microbial Ecology, Research Network Chemistry meets Microbiology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090, Vienna, Austria.
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Risse-Buhl U, Herrmann M, Lange P, Akob DM, Pizani N, Schönborn W, Totsche KU, Küsel K. Phagotrophic Protist Diversity in the Groundwater of a Karstified Aquifer - Morphological and Molecular Analysis. J Eukaryot Microbiol 2013; 60:467-79. [DOI: 10.1111/jeu.12054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2012] [Revised: 03/29/2013] [Accepted: 04/10/2013] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Ute Risse-Buhl
- Limnology/Aquatic Geomicrobiology Research Group; Institute of Ecology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Dornburger Straße 159 07743 Jena Thuringia Germany
| | - Martina Herrmann
- Limnology/Aquatic Geomicrobiology Research Group; Institute of Ecology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Dornburger Straße 159 07743 Jena Thuringia Germany
| | - Patricia Lange
- Limnology/Aquatic Geomicrobiology Research Group; Institute of Ecology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Dornburger Straße 159 07743 Jena Thuringia Germany
- Department of Hydrogeology; Institute of Geosciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Burgweg 11 07749 Jena Thuringia Germany
| | - Denise M. Akob
- Limnology/Aquatic Geomicrobiology Research Group; Institute of Ecology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Dornburger Straße 159 07743 Jena Thuringia Germany
| | - Natalia Pizani
- Limnology/Aquatic Geomicrobiology Research Group; Institute of Ecology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Dornburger Straße 159 07743 Jena Thuringia Germany
| | - Wilfried Schönborn
- Limnology/Aquatic Geomicrobiology Research Group; Institute of Ecology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Dornburger Straße 159 07743 Jena Thuringia Germany
| | - Kai Uwe Totsche
- Department of Hydrogeology; Institute of Geosciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Burgweg 11 07749 Jena Thuringia Germany
| | - Kirsten Küsel
- Limnology/Aquatic Geomicrobiology Research Group; Institute of Ecology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Dornburger Straße 159 07743 Jena Thuringia Germany
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