Microbial ecology of northern Gulf of Mexico estuarine waters.

Estuarine and coastal ecosystems are of high economic and ecological importance, owing to their diverse communities and the disproportionate role they play in carbon cycling, particularly in carbon sequestration. Organisms inhabiting these environments must overcome strong natural fluctuations in salinity, nutrients, and turbidity, as well as numerous climate change-induced disturbances such as land loss, sea level rise, and, in some locations, increasingly severe tropical cyclones that threaten to disrupt future ecosystem health. The northern Gulf of Mexico (nGoM) along the Louisiana coast contains dozens of estuaries, including the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River outflow, which dramatically influence the region due to their vast upstream watershed. Nevertheless, the microbiology of these estuaries and surrounding coastal environments has received little attention. To improve our understanding of microbial ecology in the understudied coastal nGoM, we conducted a 16S rRNA gene amplicon survey at eight sites and multiple time points along the Louisiana coast and one inland swamp spanning freshwater to high brackish salinities, totaling 47 duplicated Sterivex (0.2-2.7 µm) and prefilter (>2.7 µm) samples. We cataloged over 13,000 Amplicon Sequence ariants (ASVs) from common freshwater and marine clades such as SAR11 (Alphaproteobacteria), Synechococcus (Cyanobacteria), and acI and Candidatus Actinomarina (Actinobacteria). We observed correlations with freshwater or marine habitats in many organisms and characterized a group of taxa with specialized distributions across brackish water sites, supporting the hypothesis of an endogenous brackish-water community. Additionally, we observed brackish-water associations for several aquatic clades typically considered marine or freshwater taxa, such as SAR11 subclade II, SAR324, and the acI Actinobacteria. The data presented here expand the geographic coverage of microbial ecology in estuarine communities, help delineate the native and transitory members of these environments, and provide critical aquatic microbiological baseline data for coastal and estuarine sites in the nGoM.IMPORTANCEEstuarine and coastal waters are diverse ecosystems influenced by tidal fluxes, interconnected wetlands, and river outflows, which are of high economic and ecological importance. Microorganisms play a pivotal role in estuaries as "first responders" and ecosystem architects, yet despite their ecological importance, they remain underrepresented in microbial studies compared to open ocean environments. This leads to substantial knowledge gaps that are important for understanding global biogeochemical cycling and making decisions about conservation and management strategies in these environments. Our study makes key contributions to the microbial ecology of estuarine and coastal habitats in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Our microbial community data support the concept of a globally distributed, core brackish microbiome and emphasize previously underrecognized brackish-water taxa. Given the projected worsening of land loss, oil spills, and natural disasters in this region, our results will serve as important baseline data for researchers investigating the microbial communities found across estuaries.

Metagenomics and metatranscriptomics reveal broadly distributed, active, novel methanotrophs in the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone and in the marine water column.

The northern Gulf of Mexico (nGOM) hypoxic zone is a shallow water environment where methane, a potent greenhouse gas, fluxes from sediments to bottom water and remains trapped due to summertime stratification. When the water column is destratified, an active planktonic methanotrophic community could mitigate the efflux of methane, which accumulates to high concentrations, to the atmosphere. To investigate the possibility of such a biofilter in the nGOM hypoxic zone we performed metagenome assembly, and metagenomic and metatranscriptomic read mapping. Methane monooxygenase (pmoA) was an abundant transcript, yet few canonical methanotrophs have been reported in this environment, suggesting a role for non-canonical methanotrophs. To determine the identity of these methanotrophs, we reconstructed six novel metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) in the Planctomycetota, Verrucomicrobiota and one putative Latescibacterota, each with at least one pmoA gene copy. Based on ribosomal protein phylogeny, closely related microbes (mostly from Tara Oceans) and isolate genomes were selected and co-analyzed with the nGOM MAGs. Gene annotation and read mapping suggested that there is a large, diverse and unrecognized community of active aerobic methanotrophs in the nGOM hypoxic zone and in the global ocean that could mitigate methane flux to the atmosphere.

Complete Genome Sequence of Marinobacterium sp. Strain LSUCC0821, Isolated from the Coastal Gulf of Mexico.

Here, we present the complete genome sequence of Marinobacterium sp. strain LSUCC0821, isolated from the coastal Gulf of Mexico with artificial seawater using high-throughput dilution-to-extinction (DTE) cultivation. The 2.36-Mbp circularized genome sequence has 2,231 predicted genes, a 91.5% coding density, and a GC content of 47.8%.

Draft Genome Sequence of Strain LSUCC0112, a Gulf of Mexico Representative of the Oligotrophic Marine Gammaproteobacteria.

Here, we present the draft genome sequence of strain LSUCC0112, a cultured representative from the Gulf of Mexico that is phylogenetically close to the OM182 clade within oligotrophic marine Gammaproteobacteria LSUCC0112 shows the potential for aerobic heterotrophy, glycogen synthesis, flagellar motility, and assimilatory sulfate reduction.

Extent of the annual Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone influences microbial community structure.

Rich geochemical datasets generated over the past 30 years have provided fine-scale resolution on the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGOM) coastal hypoxic (≤ 2 mg of O2 L-1) zone. In contrast, little is known about microbial community structure and activity in the hypoxic zone despite the implication that microbial respiration is responsible for forming low dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions. Here, we hypothesized that the extent of the hypoxic zone is a driver in determining microbial community structure, and in particular, the abundance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA). Samples collected across the shelf for two consecutive hypoxic seasons in July 2013 and 2014 were analyzed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, oligotyping, microbial co-occurrence analysis, and quantification of thaumarchaeal 16S rRNA and archaeal ammonia-monooxygenase (amoA) genes. In 2014 Thaumarchaeota were enriched and inversely correlated with DO while Cyanobacteria, Acidimicrobiia, and Proteobacteria where more abundant in oxic samples compared to hypoxic. Oligotyping analysis of Nitrosopumilus 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that one oligotype was significantly inversely correlated with DO in both years. Oligotyping analysis revealed single nucleotide variation among all Nitrosopumilaceae, including Nitrosopumilus 16S rRNA gene sequences, with one oligotype possibly being better adapted to hypoxia. We further provide evidence that in the hypoxic zone of both year 2013 and 2014, low DO concentrations and high Thaumarchaeota abundances influenced microbial co-occurrence patterns. Taken together, the data demonstrated that the extent of hypoxic conditions could potentially drive patterns in microbial community structure, with two years of data revealing the annual nGOM hypoxic zone to be emerging as a low DO adapted AOA hotspot.

Metagenomic Assembly and Prokaryotic Metagenome-Assembled Genome Sequences from the Northern Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone".

Coastal regions experiencing declining dissolved oxygen are increasing in number and severity around the world. However, despite the importance of microbial metabolism in coastal hypoxia, few metagenomic surveys exist. Our data set from within the second largest human-caused hypoxic region provides opportunities to more deeply explore the microbiology of these systems.

Metabolic Roles of Uncultivated Bacterioplankton Lineages in the Northern Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone".

Marine regions that have seasonal to long-term low dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations, sometimes called "dead zones," are increasing in number and severity around the globe with deleterious effects on ecology and economics. One of the largest of these coastal dead zones occurs on the continental shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGOM), which results from eutrophication-enhanced bacterioplankton respiration and strong seasonal stratification. Previous research in this dead zone revealed the presence of multiple cosmopolitan bacterioplankton lineages that have eluded cultivation, and thus their metabolic roles in this ecosystem remain unknown. We used a coupled shotgun metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approach to determine the metabolic potential of Marine Group II Euryarchaeota, SAR406, and SAR202. We recovered multiple high-quality, nearly complete genomes from all three groups as well as candidate phyla usually associated with anoxic environments-Parcubacteria (OD1) and Peregrinibacteria Two additional groups with putative assignments to ACD39 and PAUC34f supplement the metabolic contributions by uncultivated taxa. Our results indicate active metabolism in all groups, including prevalent aerobic respiration, with concurrent expression of genes for nitrate reduction in SAR406 and SAR202, and dissimilatory nitrite reduction to ammonia and sulfur reduction by SAR406. We also report a variety of active heterotrophic carbon processing mechanisms, including degradation of complex carbohydrate compounds by SAR406, SAR202, ACD39, and PAUC34f. Together, these data help constrain the metabolic contributions from uncultivated groups in the nGOM during periods of low DO and suggest roles for these organisms in the breakdown of complex organic matter.IMPORTANCE Dead zones receive their name primarily from the reduction of eukaryotic macrobiota (demersal fish, shrimp, etc.) that are also key coastal fisheries. Excess nutrients contributed from anthropogenic activity such as fertilizer runoff result in algal blooms and therefore ample new carbon for aerobic microbial metabolism. Combined with strong stratification, microbial respiration reduces oxygen in shelf bottom waters to levels unfit for many animals (termed hypoxia). The nGOM shelf remains one of the largest eutrophication-driven hypoxic zones in the world, yet despite its potential as a model study system, the microbial metabolisms underlying and resulting from this phenomenon-many of which occur in bacterioplankton from poorly understood lineages-have received only preliminary study. Our work details the metabolic potential and gene expression activity for uncultivated lineages across several low DO sites in the nGOM, improving our understanding of the active biogeochemical cycling mediated by these "microbial dark matter" taxa during hypoxia.

Artificial Seawater Media Facilitate Cultivating Members of the Microbial Majority from the Gulf of Mexico.

High-throughput cultivation studies have been successful at bringing numerous important marine bacterioplankton lineages into culture, yet these frequently utilize natural seawater media that can hamper portability, reproducibility, and downstream characterization efforts. Here we report the results of seven experiments with a set of newly developed artificial seawater media and evaluation of cultivation success via comparison with community sequencing data from the inocula. Eighty-two new isolates represent highly important marine clades, including SAR116, OM60/NOR5, SAR92, Roseobacter, and SAR11. For many, isolation with an artificial seawater medium is unprecedented, and several organisms are also the first of their type from the Gulf of Mexico. Community analysis revealed that many isolates were among the 20 most abundant organisms in their source inoculum. This method will expand the accessibility of bacterioplankton cultivation experiments and improve repeatability by avoiding normal compositional changes in natural seawater. IMPORTANCE The difficulty in cultivating many microbial taxa vexes researchers intent on understanding the contributions of these organisms to natural systems, particularly when these organisms are numerically abundant, and many cultivation attempts recover only rare taxa. Efforts to improve this conundrum with marine bacterioplankton have been successful with natural seawater media, but that approach suffers from a number of drawbacks and there have been no comparable artificial alternatives created in the laboratory. This work demonstrates that a newly developed suite of artificial-seawater media can successfully cultivate many of the most abundant taxa from seawater samples and many taxa previously only cultivated with natural-seawater media. This methodology therefore significantly simplifies efforts to cultivate bacterioplankton and greatly improves our ability to perform physiological characterization of cultures postisolation.

Correction for Henson et al., Artificial Seawater Media Facilitate Cultivating Members of the Microbial Majority from the Gulf of Mexico.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1128/mSphere.00028-16.].

Archaeal enrichment in the hypoxic zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Areas of low oxygen have spread exponentially over the past 40 years, and are cited as a key stressor on coastal ecosystems. The world's second largest coastal hypoxic (≤ 2 mg of O2 l(-1)) zone occurs annually in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The net effect of hypoxia is the diversion of energy flow away from higher trophic levels to microorganisms. This energy shunt is consequential to the overall productivity of hypoxic water masses and the ecosystem as a whole. In this study, water column samples were collected at 39 sites in the nGOM, 21 of which were hypoxic. Analysis of the microbial community along a hypoxic to oxic dissolved oxygen gradient revealed that the relative abundance (iTag) of Thaumarchaeota species 16S rRNA genes (> 40% of the microbial community in some hypoxic samples), the absolute abundance (quantitative polymerase chain reaction; qPCR) of Thaumarchaeota 16S rRNA genes and archaeal ammonia-monooxygenase gene copy number (qPCR) were significantly higher in hypoxic samples. Spatial interpolation of the microbial and chemical data revealed a continuous, shelfwide band of low dissolved oxygen waters that were dominated by Thaumarchaeota (and Euryarchaeota), amoA genes and high concentrations of phosphate in the nGOM, thus implicating physicochemical forcing on microbial abundance.