TY  - JOUR
A1  - Krauze, Patryk
A1  - Kämpf, Horst
A1  - Horn, Fabian
A1  - Liu, Qi
A1  - Voropaev, Andrey
A1  - Wagner, Dirk
A1  - Alawi, Mashal
T1  - Microbiological and Geochemical Survey of CO2-Dominated Mofette and Mineral Waters of the Cheb Basin, Czech Republic
JF  - Frontiers in microbiology
N2  - The Cheb Basin (NW Bohemia, Czech Republic) is a shallow, neogene intracontinental basin. It is a non-volcanic region which features frequent earthquake swarms and large-scale diffuse degassing of mantle-derived CO2 at the surface that occurs in the form of CO2-rich mineral springs and wet and dry mofettes. So far, the influence of CO2 degassing onto the microbial communities has been studied for soil environments, but not for aquatic systems. We hypothesized, that deep-trenching CO2 conduits interconnect the subsurface with the surface. This admixture of deep thermal fluids should be reflected in geochemical parameters and in the microbial community compositions. In the present study four mineral water springs and two wet mofettes were investigated through an interdisciplinary survey. The waters were acidic and differed in terms of organic carbon and anion/cation concentrations. Element geochemical and isotope analyses of fluid components were used to verify the origin of the fluids. Prokaryotic communities were characterized through quantitative PCR and Illumina 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Putative chemolithotrophic, anaerobic and microaerophilic organisms connected to sulfur (e.g., Sulfuricurvum, Sulfurimonas) and iron (e.g., Gallionella, Sideroxydans) cycling shaped the core community. Additionally, CO2-influenced waters form an ecosystem containing many taxa that are usually found in marine or terrestrial subsurface ecosystems. Multivariate statistics highlighted the influence of environmental parameters such as pH, Fe2+ concentration and conductivity on species distribution. The hydrochemical and microbiological survey introduces a new perspective on mofettes. Our results support that mofettes are either analogs or rather windows into the deep biosphere and furthermore enable access to deeply buried paleo-sediments.
KW  - elevated CO2 concentration
KW  - microbial ecology
KW  - deep biosphere
KW  - Eger Rift
KW  - paleo-sediment
KW  - Sulfuricurvum
KW  - Gallionella
KW  - Sideroxydans
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2017.02446
SN  - 1664-302X
VL  - 8
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -