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Refractory humic-like dissolved organic matter fuels microbial communities in deep energy-limiting marine sediments

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Abstract

Humic-like dissolved organic matter (DOM), usually regarded as refractory, is a major component of DOM in marine sediment pore waters. However, its bio-reactivity remains poorly explored in natural environments, which makes its roles in supporting subsurface microbial communities and regulating long-term carbon cycling elusive. Here, the bio-reactivity of humic-like DOM was evaluated by modeled reaction rates together with its interactions with microbial communities in five sediment cores collected from the eutrophic Pearl River Estuary to the oligotrophic deep-sea basin in the northern South China Sea. We revealed contrasting relationships between humic-like DOM and microbes in the coastal and deep-sea sediments. In eutrophic coastal sediments, specific microbial groups enriched in the deep layers co-varied with humic-like DOM, while most microbial groups were significantly correlated with protein-like DOM, microbial transformation of which likely resulted in the production of humic-like DOM. On the contrary, in energy-limiting deep-sea sediments, over 70% of the microbial groups were found closely correlated with humic-like DOM, a net consumption of which was demonstrated in deep layers. The consumption of humic-like DOM in deep-sea sediments reduced its total production flux in the uppermost ~5-meter layer to about one-tenth of that in coastal sediments, which could consequently decrease the refractory DOM flux to the overlying seawater and influence long-term oceanic carbon cycling.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate Dr. Kai Wang for the technical support on DOC concentration and EEM measurements at Zhejiang University. We also thank Dr. Urban J. Wünsch from Technical University of Denmark for helpful suggestions on using the drEEM toolbox. We are grateful to the captain and crew members of the German R/V SONNE cruise SO269, especially Dr. Yinzhao Wang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, for supporting the sample collection. Raw Illumina sequence data of the 16S rRNA gene generated in this study have been deposited in the NODE (the National Omics Data Encyclopedia) database under the project number OEP003598. The bathymetry data were obtained from the Etopo1 dataset at https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/global.html. The coastline data were obtained from the GSHHG dataset at https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/gshhs.html. All other data discussed in the paper are available in the paper or in the Supplementary Information. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42141003, 41921006 & 41867057), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2020YFA0608300), the “Shanghai Jiao Tong University 2030” Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (Grant No. SMSEGL20SC01), and the Center for Ocean Research in Hong Kong and Macau (CORE; CORE is a joint research center for ocean research between QNLM and HKUST). The SO269 cruise (SO-CLIS-South China Sea-natural laboratory under climatic and human induced stress, BMBFFKZ 03G0269) was a contribution to the bilateral Sino-German project MEGAPOL - Megacity’s fingerprint in Chinese marginal seas: Investigation of pollutant fingerprints and dispersal within the framework of WTZ China of the German government and was founded by BMBF (Grant No. 03F0786A).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Yunru Chen & Feng** Wang

  2. School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Weikang Sui, **g Wang, Liang Dong & Feng** Wang

  3. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai, 519000, China

    Feng** Wang

  4. Department of Ocean Science and the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, 999077, China

    Ding He

  5. School of Earth Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Ding He

  6. Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research, Warnemünde, Rostock, 18119, Germany

    Joanna J. Waniek

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  1. Yunru Chen
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  2. Weikang Sui
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  3. **g Wang
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  4. Ding He
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  6. Joanna J. Waniek
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  7. Feng** Wang
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Correspondence to Feng** Wang.

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Chen, Y., Sui, W., Wang, J. et al. Refractory humic-like dissolved organic matter fuels microbial communities in deep energy-limiting marine sediments. Sci. China Earth Sci. 66, 1738–1756 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-022-1123-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-022-1123-y

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