TY - GEN A1 - Wurzbacher, Christian A1 - Fuchs, Andrea A1 - Attermeyer, Katrin A1 - Frindte, Katharina A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Hupfer, Michael A1 - Casper, Peter A1 - Monaghan, Michael T. T1 - Shifts among Eukaryota, Bacteria, and Archaea define the vertical organization of a lake sediment T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Background Lake sediments harbor diverse microbial communities that cycle carbon and nutrients while being constantly colonized and potentially buried by organic matter sinking from the water column. The interaction of activity and burial remained largely unexplored in aquatic sediments. We aimed to relate taxonomic composition to sediment biogeochemical parameters, test whether community turnover with depth resulted from taxonomic replacement or from richness effects, and to provide a basic model for the vertical community structure in sediments. Methods We analyzed four replicate sediment cores taken from 30-m depth in oligo-mesotrophic Lake Stechlin in northern Germany. Each 30-cm core spanned ca. 170 years of sediment accumulation according to 137Cs dating and was sectioned into layers 1–4 cm thick. We examined a full suite of biogeochemical parameters and used DNA metabarcoding to examine community composition of microbial Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryota. Results Community β-diversity indicated nearly complete turnover within the uppermost 30 cm. We observed a pronounced shift from Eukaryota- and Bacteria-dominated upper layers (<5 cm) to Bacteria-dominated intermediate layers (5–14 cm) and to deep layers (>14 cm) dominated by enigmatic Archaea that typically occur in deep-sea sediments. Taxonomic replacement was the prevalent mechanism in structuring the community composition and was linked to parameters indicative of microbial activity (e.g., CO2 and CH4 concentration, bacterial protein production). Richness loss played a lesser role but was linked to conservative parameters (e.g., C, N, P) indicative of past conditions. Conclusions By including all three domains, we were able to directly link the exponential decay of eukaryotes with the active sediment microbial community. The dominance of Archaea in deeper layers confirms earlier findings from marine systems and establishes freshwater sediments as a potential low-energy environment, similar to deep sea sediments. We propose a general model of sediment structure and function based on microbial characteristics and burial processes. An upper “replacement horizon” is dominated by rapid taxonomic turnover with depth, high microbial activity, and biotic interactions. A lower “depauperate horizon” is characterized by low taxonomic richness, more stable “low-energy” conditions, and a dominance of enigmatic Archaea. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1111 KW - Archaea KW - Eukaryota KW - Bacteria KW - community KW - freshwater KW - lake KW - DNA metabarcoding KW - beta-diversity KW - sediment KW - turnover Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-431965 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 1111 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Frindte, Katharina A1 - Allgaier, Martin A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Eckert, Werner T1 - Microbial response to experimentally controlled redox transitions at the sediment water interface T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The sediment-water interface of freshwater lakes is characterized by sharp chemical gradients, shaped by the interplay between physical, chemical and microbial processes. As dissolved oxygen is depleted in the uppermost sediment, the availability of alternative electron acceptors, e.g. nitrate and sulfate, becomes the limiting factor. We performed a time series experiment in a mesocosm to simulate the transition from aerobic to anaerobic conditions at the sediment-water interface. Our goal was to identify changes in the microbial activity due to redox transitions induced by successive depletion of available electron acceptors. Monitoring critical hydrochemical parameters in the overlying water in conjunction with a new sampling strategy for sediment bacteria enabled us to correlate redox changes in the water to shifts in the active microbial community and the expression of functional genes representing specific redox-dependent microbial processes. Our results show that during several transitions from oxic-heterotrophic condition to sulfate-reducing condition, nitrate-availability and the on-set of sulfate reduction strongly affected the corresponding functional gene expression. There was evidence of anaerobic methane oxidation with NOx. DGGE analysis revealed redox-related changes in microbial activity and expression of functional genes involved in sulfate and nitrite reduction, whereas methanogenesis and methanotrophy showed only minor changes during redox transitions. The combination of high-frequency chemical measurements and molecular methods provide new insights into the temporal dynamics of the interplay between microbial activity and specific redox transitions at the sediment-water interface. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 509 KW - anaerobic methane oxidation KW - oligotrophic lake Stechlin KW - ribosomal RNA KW - vertical-distribution KW - coastal sediments KW - sulfate reduction KW - Shallow Lake KW - bacteria KW - carbon KW - communities Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408464 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 509 ER -