TY - JOUR A1 - Kallmeyer, Jens A1 - Grewe, Sina A1 - Glombitza, Clemens A1 - Kitte, J. Axel T1 - Microbial abundance in lacustrine sediments: a case study from Lake Van, Turkey T2 - International journal of earth sciences N2 - The ICDP "PaleoVan" drilling campaign at Lake Van, Turkey, provided a long (> 100 m) record of lacustrine subsurface sedimentary microbial cell abundance. After the ICDP campaign at Potrok Aike, Argentina, this is only the second time deep lacustrine cell counts have been documented. Two sites were cored and revealed a strikingly similar cell distribution despite differences in organic matter content and microbial activity. Although shifted towards higher values, cell counts from Lake Potrok Aike, Argentina, reveal very similar distribution patterns with depth. The lacustrine cell count data are significantly different from published marine records; the most probable cause is differences in sedimentary organic matter composition with marine sediments containing a higher fraction of labile organic matter. Previous studies showed that microbial activity and abundance increase centimetres to metres around geologic interfaces. The finely laminated Lake Van sediment allowed studying this phenomenon on the microscale. We sampled at the scale of individual laminae, and in some depth intervals, we found large differences in microbial abundance between the different laminae. This small-scale heterogeneity is normally overlooked due to much larger sampling intervals that integrate over several centimetres. However, not all laminated intervals exhibit such large differences in microbial abundance, and some non-laminated horizons show large variability on the millimetre scale as well. The reasons for such contrasting observations remain elusive, but indicate that heterogeneity of microbial abundance in subsurface sediments has not been taken into account sufficiently. These findings have implications not just for microbiological studies but for geochemistry as well, as the large differences in microbial abundance clearly show that there are distinct microhabitats that deviate considerably from the surrounding layers. KW - Subsurface biosphere KW - Deep biosphere KW - Lake Van KW - Cell counts KW - Lacustrine sediment Y1 - 2015 UR - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/38640 SN - 1437-3254 SN - 1437-3262 VL - 104 IS - 6 SP - 1667 EP - 1677 PB - Springer CY - New York ER -