Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) operating with complex microbial communities have been extensively reported in the past, and are commonly used in applications such as wastewater treatment, bioremediation ...or in-situ powering of environmental sensors. However, our knowledge on how the composition of the microbial community and the different types of electron transfer to the anode affect the performance of these bioelectrochemical systems is far from complete. To fill this gap of knowledge, we designed a set of three MFCs with different constrains limiting direct and mediated electron transfer to the anode.
The results obtained indicate that MFCs with a naked anode on which a biofilm was allowed unrestricted development (MFC-A) had the most diverse archaeal and bacterial community, and offered the best performance. In this MFC both, direct and mediated electron transfer, occurred simultaneously, but direct electron transfer was the predominant mechanism. Microbial fuel cells in which the anode was enclosed in a dialysis membrane and biofilm was not allowed to develop (MFC-D), had a much lower power output (about 60% lower), and a prevalence of dissolved redox species that acted as putative electron shuttles. In the anolyte of this MFC, Arcobacter and Methanosaeta were the prevalent bacteria and archaea respectively. In the third MFC, in which the anode had been covered by a cation selective nafion membrane (MFC-N), power output decreased a further 5% (95% less than MFC-A). In this MFC, conventional organic electron shuttles could not operate and the low power output obtained was presumably attributed to fermentation end-products produced by some of the organisms present in the anolyte, probably Pseudomonas or Methanosaeta.
Electron transfer mechanisms have an impact on the development of different microbial communities and in turn on MFC performance. Although a stable current was achieved in all cases, direct electron transfer MFC showed the best performance concluding that biofilms are the major contributors to current production in MFCs. Characterization of the complex microbial assemblages in these systems may help us to unveil new electrogenic microorganisms and improve our understanding on their role to the functioning of MFCs.
Bacteria display dynamic abundance fluctuations over time in marine environments, where they play key biogeochemical roles. Here, we characterized the seasonal dynamics of marine bacteria in a ...coastal oligotrophic time series station, tested how similar the temporal niche of closely related taxa is, and what are the environmental parameters modulating their seasonal abundance patterns. We further explored how conserved the niche is at higher taxonomic levels. The community presented recurrent patterns of seasonality for 297 out of 6825 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs), which constituted almost half of the total relative abundance (47%). For certain genera, niche similarity decreased as nucleotide divergence in the 16S rRNA gene increased, a pattern compatible with the selection of similar taxa through environmental filtering. Additionally, we observed evidence of seasonal differentiation within various genera as seen by the distinct seasonal patterns of closely related taxa. At broader taxonomic levels, coherent seasonal trends did not exist at the class level, while the order and family ranks depended on the patterns that existed at the genus level. This study identifies the coexistence of closely related taxa for some bacterial groups and seasonal differentiation for others in a coastal marine environment subjected to a strong seasonality.
We studied the long-term temporal dynamics of the aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic (AAP) bacteria, a relevant functional group in the coastal marine microbial food web, using high-throughput ...sequencing of the pufM gene coupled with multivariate, time series and co-occurrence analyses at the Blanes Bay Microbial Observatory (NW Mediterranean). Additionally, using metagenomics, we tested whether the used primers captured accurately the seasonality of the most relevant AAP groups. Phylogroup K (Gammaproteobacteria) was the greatest contributor to community structure over all seasons, with phylogroups E and G (Alphaproteobacteria) being prevalent in spring. Diversity indices showed a clear seasonal trend, with maximum values in winter, which was inverse to that of AAP abundance. Multivariate analyses revealed sample clustering by season, with a relevant proportion of the variance explained by day length, temperature, salinity, phototrophic nanoflagellate abundance, chlorophyll a, and silicate concentration. Time series analysis showed robust rhythmic patterns of co-occurrence, but distinct seasonal behaviors within the same phylogroup, and even within different amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) conforming the same operational taxonomic unit (OTU). Altogether, our results picture the AAP assemblage as highly seasonal and recurrent but containing ecotypes showing distinctive temporal niche partitioning, rather than being a cohesive functional group.
Estimation of prokaryotic growth rates is critical to understand the ecological role and contribution of different microbes to marine biogeochemical cycles. However, there is a general lack of ...knowledge on what factors control the growth rates of different prokaryotic groups and how these vary between sites and along seasons at a given site. We carried out several manipulation experiments during the four astronomical seasons in the coastal NW Mediterranean in order to evaluate the impact of grazing, viral mortality, resource competition and light on the growth and loss rates of prokaryotes. Gross and net growth rates of different bacterioplankton groups targeted by group-specific CARD-FISH probes and infrared microscopy (for aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs, AAP), were calculated from changes in cell abundances. Maximal group-specific growth rates were achieved when both predation pressure and nutrient limitation were experimentally minimized, while only a minimal effect of viral pressure on growth rates was observed; nevertheless, the response to predation removal was more remarkable in winter, when the bacterial community was not subjected to nutrient limitation. Although all groups showed increases in their growth rates when resource competition as well as grazers and viral pressure were reduced, Alteromonadaceae consistently presented the highest rates in all seasons. The response to light availability was generally weaker than that to the other factors, but it was variable between seasons. In summer and spring, the growth rates of AAP were stimulated by light whereas the growth of the SAR11 clade (likely containing proteorhodopsin) was enhanced by light in all seasons. Overall, our results set thresholds on bacterioplankton group-specific growth and mortality rates and contribute to estimate the seasonally changing contribution of various bacterioplankton groups to the function of microbial communities. Our results also indicate that the least abundant groups display the highest growth rates, contributing to the recycling of organic matter to a much greater extent than what their abundances alone would predict.
Sequencing of 16S rDNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplicons is the most common approach for investigating environmental prokaryotic diversity, despite the known biases introduced during PCR. ...Here we show that 16S rDNA fragments derived from Illumina‐sequenced environmental metagenomes (ₘᵢtags) are a powerful alternative to 16S rDNA amplicons for investigating the taxonomic diversity and structure of prokaryotic communities. As part of the Tara Oceans global expedition, marine plankton was sampled in three locations, resulting in 29 subsamples for which metagenomes were produced by shotgun Illumina sequencing (ca. 700 Gb). For comparative analyses, a subset of samples was also selected for Roche‐454 sequencing using both shotgun (ₘ₄₅₄tags; 13 metagenomes, ca. 2.4 Gb) and 16S rDNA amplicon (₄₅₄tags; ca. 0.075 Gb) approaches. Our results indicate that by overcoming PCR biases related to amplification and primer mismatch, ₘᵢtags may provide more realistic estimates of community richness and evenness than amplicon ₄₅₄tags. In addition, ₘᵢtags can capture expected beta diversity patterns. Using ₘᵢtags is now economically feasible given the dramatic reduction in high‐throughput sequencing costs, having the advantage of retrieving simultaneously both taxonomic (Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya) and functional information from the same microbial community.
How much temporal recurrence is present in microbial assemblages is still an unanswered ecological question. Even though marked seasonal changes have been reported for whole microbial communities, ...less is known on the dynamics and seasonality of individual taxa. Here, we aim at understanding microbial recurrence at three different levels: community, taxonomic group and operational taxonomic units (OTUs). For that, we focused on a model microbial eukaryotic community populating a long‐term marine microbial observatory using 18S rRNA gene data from two organismal size fractions: the picoplankton (0.2–3 µm) and the nanoplankton (3–20 µm). We have developed an index to quantify recurrence in particular taxa. We found that community structure oscillated systematically between two main configurations corresponding to winter and summer over the 10 years studied. A few taxonomic groups such as Mamiellophyceae or MALV‐III presented clear recurrence (i.e., seasonality), whereas 13%–19% of the OTUs in both size fractions, accounting for ~40% of the relative abundance, featured recurrent dynamics. Altogether, our work links long‐term whole community dynamics with that of individual OTUs and taxonomic groups, indicating that recurrent and non‐recurrent changes characterize the dynamics of microbial assemblages.
see also the Perspective by Moreira and López‐García
Abstract
Large rivers are commonly regulated by damming, yet the effects of such disruption on prokaryotic communities have seldom been studied. We describe the effects of the three large reservoirs ...of the Ebro River (NE Iberian Peninsula) on bacterioplankton assemblages by comparing several sites located before and after the impoundments on three occasions. We monitored the abundances of several bacterial phylotypes identified by rRNA gene probing, and those of two functional groups (picocyanobacteria and aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria-AAPs). Much greater numbers of particles colonized by bacteria were found in upstream waters than downstream sites. Picocyanobacteria were found in negligible numbers at most sites, whereas AAPs constituted up to 14% of total prokaryotes, but there was no clear effect of reservoirs on the spatial dynamics of these two groups. Instead, damming caused a pronounced decline in Betaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes from upstream to downstream sites, whereas Alphaproteobacteria and Actinobacteria significantly increased after the reservoirs. Redundancy analysis revealed that conductivity, temperature and dissolved inorganic nitrogen were the environmental predictors that best explained the observed variability in bacterial community composition. Our data show that impoundments exerted significant impacts on bacterial riverine assemblages and call attention to the unforeseen ecological consequences of river regulation.
The abundance and diversity of aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs (AAPs) were studied for a year cycle at the Blanes Bay Microbial Observatory (NW Mediterranean) and their potential links to an array of ...environmental variables were explored. Cell numbers were low in winter and peaked in summer, showing a marked seasonality that positively correlated with day length and light at the surface. Bacteriochlorophyll a concentration, their light‐harvesting pigment, was only detected between April and October, and pigment cell quota showed large variations during this period. Pyrosequencing analysis of the pufM gene revealed that the most abundant operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were affiliated to phylogroup K (Gammaproteobacteria) and uncultured phylogroup C, although they were outnumbered by alphaproteobacterial OTUs in spring. Overall, richness was higher in winter than in summer, showing an opposite trend to abundance and day length. Clustering of samples by multivariate analyses showed a clear seasonality that suggests a succession of different AAP subpopulations over time. Temperature, chlorophyll a and day length were the environmental drivers that best explained the distribution of AAP assemblages. These results indicate that AAP bacteria are highly dynamic and undergo seasonal variations in diversity and abundance mostly dictated by environmental conditions as exemplified by light availability.
Aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic (AAP) bacteria are microorganisms that can harvest light energy using bacteriochlorophyll a to supplement their predominantly organotrophic metabolism. Growth ...enhancement by light has repeatedly been demonstrated in laboratory experiments with AAP isolates. However, the ecological advantage of light utilization is unclear, as it has never been proven in the natural environment. Here, we conducted manipulation experiments in the NW Mediterranean and found that AAP bacteria display high growth rates which are controlled to a large extent by intense grazing pressure and phosphorous availability. Foremost, we found that, contrarily to the bulk bacterioplakton, AAP bacteria display higher growth rates when incubated under light-dark cycles than in complete darkness. These results represent the first direct evidence that natural populations of marine AAP bacteria can be stimulated by light.
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