Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The . gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in VSports app下载. gov or . mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site. .

Https

The site is secure V体育官网. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely. .

. 2005 Aug;71(8):4822-32.
doi: 10.1128/AEM.71.8.4822-4832.2005.

Composition and structure of microbial communities from stromatolites of Hamelin Pool in Shark Bay, Western Australia

Dominic Papineau  1 , Jeffrey J Walker, Stephen J Mojzsis, Norman R Pace
Affiliations

Composition and structure of microbial communities from stromatolites of Hamelin Pool in Shark Bay, Western Australia

Dominic Papineau et al. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2005 Aug.

Abstract

Stromatolites, organosedimentary structures formed by microbial activity, are found throughout the geological record and are important markers of biological history. More conspicuous in the past, stromatolites occur today in a few shallow marine environments, including Hamelin Pool in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Hamelin Pool stromatolites often have been considered contemporary analogs to ancient stromatolites, yet little is known about the microbial communities that build them. We used DNA-based molecular phylogenetic methods that do not require cultivation to study the microbial diversity of an irregular stromatolite and of the surface and interior of a domal stromatolite. To identify the constituents of the stromatolite communities, small subunit rRNA genes were amplified by PCR from community genomic DNA with universal primers, cloned, sequenced, and compared to known rRNA genes. The communities were highly diverse and novel. The average sequence identity of Hamelin Pool sequences compared to the >200,000 known rRNA sequences was only approximately 92% VSports手机版. Clone libraries were approximately 90% bacterial and approximately 10% archaeal, and eucaryotic rRNA genes were not detected in the libraries. The most abundant sequences were representative of novel proteobacteria (approximately 28%), planctomycetes ( approximately 17%), and actinobacteria (approximately 14%). Sequences representative of cyanobacteria, long considered to dominate these communities, comprised <5% of clones. Approximately 10% of the sequences were most closely related to those of alpha-proteobacterial anoxygenic phototrophs. These results provide a framework for understanding the kinds of organisms that build contemporary stromatolites, their ecology, and their relevance to stromatolites preserved in the geological record. .

PubMed Disclaimer

"V体育2025版" Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Pictures of the field site in the Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay. (A) Low-to-mid tide at the Hamelin Station exposing domal stromatolites and microbial mats. (B) Submerged irregular stromatolites at the Hamelin Station. (C) Sample HPDOM, at the tip of the hammer, collected from a domal stromatolite (26°23′32.4"S and 114°09′41.4′E). (D) Sample HPIRR, below the hammer (circled), from a submerged irregular stromatolite (∼20 m away from HPDOM).
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
Light micrographs of Hamelin Pool stromatolites in thin section. (A) Image of sample HPDOM showing the surface (S) and the micritic interior close to the surface with pore spaces (po). (B) Representative image in crossed-polarized light of the interior of HPDOM showing an abundance of foraminifera (fo), detrital quartz grains (qt), and acicular aragonite (ar), which coat the interior of some pores (po). (C) Representative image of the interior of HPIRR showing the matrix dominated by micrite.
FIG. 3.
FIG. 3.
Phylogeny and representativeness of duplicate clone libraries. (A) HPDOM-S, (B) HPDOM-I, and (C) HPIRR. Each phylogenetic tree contains sequences from duplicate libraries, which, respectively, are represented by black and gray boxes. No significant differences were detected in statistical comparison of the phylogenetic composition of duplicate libraries. The phylogenetic lineages and relative proportion of sequences in the libraries are indicated for abundant sequences in the communities. Scale is 0.10 nucleotide changes per site.
FIG. 4.
FIG. 4.
Distribution of the relatedness of Hamelin Pool rRNA gene sequences to those currently available in GenBank.
FIG. 5.
FIG. 5.
Comparison of the most abundant sequences by phylogenetic division for (A) HPDOM-S and HPDOM-I and (B) HPDOM and HPIRR.
FIG. 6.
FIG. 6.
Diagramatic phylogenetic trees of Hamelin Pool stromatolite sequences and their cultivated relatives. Reference sequences of cultured representatives are shown in italics with associated GenBank accession numbers. Groups of related Hamelin Pool sequences are represented by wedges. The range of sequence divergence is represented by the lengths of the top and bottom edges. Open wedges contain sequences from HPIRR, black wedges contain sequences from HPDOM, gray wedges contain sequences from both, and wedges that contain reference sequences only are labeled inside the wedge. (A) Cyanobacterial sequences. Percentages indicate the fraction of total cyanobacterial sequences from HPDOM (DOM) or HPIRR (IRR). There were seven HPDOM sequences and nine HPIRR se-quences. (B) α-Proteobacterial sequences. Percentages indicate the fraction of total α-proteobacterial sequences from HPDOM (DOM) or HPIRR (IRR). The fraction of total HPDOM sequences from the surface (DOM-S) and interior (DOM-I) are shown. There were 53 HPDOM α-proteobacterial sequences and 45 HPIRR α-proteobacterial sequences.
FIG. 7.
FIG. 7.
Cyanobacterial cells imaged in thin sections of the surface layer of HPDOM by LSCM shown at three magnifications. The top row shows reflected light images (A and B) and a phase-contrast image of cyanobacterial cells scraped from the surface of HPDOM (C). (D to F) Row 2 shows phycocyanin fluorescence (F 633/685). (G to I) Row 3 shows phycoerythrin fluorescence (F 543/590). (J to L) Row 4 shows the merge of images in rows 2 and 3.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Acinas, S. G., V. Klepac-Ceraj, D. E. Hunt, C. Pharino, I. Ceraj, D. L. Distel, and M. F. Polz. 2004. Fine-scale phylogenetic architecture of a complex bacterial community. Nature 430:551-554. - PubMed
    1. Acinas, S. G., L. A. Marcelino, V. Klepac-Ceraj, and M. F. Polz. 2004. Divergence and redundancy of 16S rRNA sequences in genomes with multiple rrn operons. J. Bacteriol. 186:2629-2635. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Al-Qassab, S., W. J. Lee, S. Murray, A. G. B. Simpson, and D. J. Patterson. 2002. Flagellates from stromatolites and surrounding sediments in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Acta Protozool. 41:91-144.
    1. Altschul, S. F., T. L. Madden, A. A. Schaffer, J. H. Zhang, Z. Zhang, W. Miller, and D. J. Lipman. 1997. Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res. 25:3389-3402. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Awramik, S. M., and R. Riding. 1988. Role of algal Eukaryotes in subtidal columnar stromatolite formation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 85:1327-1329. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

"VSports app下载" MeSH terms

"VSports最新版本" Associated data

LinkOut - more resources