Cryogenic Minerals in Hawaiian Lava Tubes: A Geochemical and Microbiological Exploration

Teehara, Kimberly B.; Jungbluth, Sean P.; Onac, Bogdan P.; Acosta-Maeda, T. E.; Hellebrand, E.; Misra, A. K.; Pflitsch, Andreas; Rappé, Michael S.; Smith, Stephen M.; Schörghofer, N.

doi:10.1080/01490451.2017.1362079

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Recent studies have shown an elevated proportion of Actinobacteria (86%) in sediments from Hawaiian lava tubes (Teehera et al, 2017), similar to that seen in the 6,000-year-old ice layer of Scarisoara cave ice. Moreover, the microbial community associated with ice deposits from this volcanic cave largely contained Proteobacteria phylotypes (39%), with no Firmicutes taxa present (Teehera et al, 2017), unlike the potentially active bacterial fraction seen in the current study. The low incidence of Actinobacteria in 4,000–5,000-year-old strata from Scarisoara Ice Cave were associated with high contents of organic carbon and salts, which may have resulted in an enhanced representation of Proteobacteria, in particular within the potentially active ice microbial community.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Moreover, several cold-active autotrophic bacterial strains were isolated from the ice-rock interface of South Ice Cave, Oregon, United States (Popa et al, 2012). More recent studies have characterized prokaryotic (Tebo et al, 2015) and fungal (Connell and Staudigel, 2013) communities from sediments of three volcanic caves formed on Mount Erebus, Antarctica, and from sediments and ice deposits of Hawaii lava tubes (Teehera et al, 2017). To date, the highly preserved perennial cave ice accumulations represent understudied but potentially dynamic and robust archives for investigating the impact of climate and anthropogenic pollution on the diversity and viability of the ice entrapped microbiome.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Total and Potentially Active Bacterial Communities Entrapped in a Late Glacial Through Holocene Ice Core From Scarisoara Ice Cave, Romania

Paun¹,

Icaza

Lavín

et al. 2019

Front. Microbiol.

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Our understanding of the icy-habitat microbiome is likely limited by a lack of reliable data on microorganisms inhabiting underground ice that has accumulated inside caves. To characterize how environmental variation impacts cave ice microbial community structure, we determined the composition of total and potentially active bacterial communities along a 13,000-year-old ice core from Scarisoara cave (Romania) through 16S rRNA gene Illumina sequencing. An average of 2,546 prokaryotic gDNA operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and 585 cDNA OTUs were identified across the perennial cave ice block and analyzed in relation to the geochemical composition of ice layers. The total microbial community and the putative active fraction displayed dissimilar taxa profiles. The ice-contained microbiome was dominated by Actinobacteria with a variable representation of Proteobacteria, while the putative active microbial community was equally shared between Proteobacteria and Firmicutes. Accordingly, a major presence of Cryobacterium, Lysinomonas, Pedobacter , and Aeromicrobium phylotypes homologous to psychrotrophic and psychrophilic bacteria from various cold environments were noted in the total community, while the prevalent putative active bacteria belonged to Clostridium, Pseudomonas, Janthinobacterium, Stenotrophomonas , and Massilia genera. Variation in the microbial cell density of ice strata with the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content and the strong correlation of DOC and silicon concentrations revealed a major impact of depositional processes on microbial abundance throughout the ice block. Post-depositional processes appeared to occur mostly during the 4,000–7,000 years BP interval. A major bacterial composition shift was observed in 4,500–5,000-year-old ice, leading to a high representation of Beta- and Deltaproteobacteria in the potentially active community in response to the increased concentrations of DOC and major chemical elements. Estimated metabolic rates suggested the presence of a viable microbial community within the cave ice block, characterized by a maintenance metabolism in most strata and growth capacity in those ice deposits with high microbial abundance and DOC content. This first survey of microbial distribution in perennial cave ice formed since the Last Glacial period revealed a complex potentially active community, highlighting major shifts in community composition associated with geochemical changes that took place during climatic events that occurred about 5,000 years ago, with putative formation of photosynthetic biofilms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Total and Potentially Active Bacterial Communities Entrapped in a Late Glacial Through Holocene Ice Core From Scarisoara Ice Cave, Romania

Paun¹,

Icaza

Lavín

et al. 2019

Front. Microbiol.

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“…However, while Antarctic caves are not ice caves sensu stricto that constitute “rock caves hosting perennial accumulations of ice” 25 , but caves carved in glaciers formed by snow diagenesis, differences in deposition mechanisms most likely have a major impact on the ice-embedded micriobial community structure. Recent investigation of Hawaiian lava tubes 21 highlighted the presence of various bacterial and archaeal communities in silica and calcite deposits and ice pond water. The ice bacterial community was dominated by Proteobacteria phylum (39%), similar to the recent ice deposits of Scarisoara Ice Cave, in addition to Bacteroidetes (18%), Verrucomicrobia (8%) and candidate division OD1 (7%) also spread in the 1-S, 1-L and 400-O alpine cave ice samples.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Erebus were recently explored, and the diversity of the bacterial 19 and fungal 20 communities from sub-ice sediments was determined. A recent survey on ice deposits and sediments on Hawaiian lava tubes revealed the presence of a diverse bacterial community and the occurrence of Euryarchaea in such cryogenic formation 21 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacterial and archaeal community structures in perennial cave ice

Iţcuş¹,

Pascu²,

Lavín

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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Ice entrenched microcosm represents a vast reservoir of novel species and a proxy for past climate reconstitution. Among glacial ecosystems, ice caves represent one of the scarcely investigated frozen habitats. To characterize the microbial diversity of perennial ice from karst ecosystems, Roche 454 sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons from the underground ice block of Scarisoara Ice Cave (Romania) was applied. The temporal distribution of bacterial and archaeal community structures from newly formed, 400, and 900 years old ice layers was surveyed and analyzed in relation with the age and geochemical composition of the ice substrate. The microbial content of cave ice layers varied from 3.3 104 up to 7.5 105 cells mL−1, with 59–78% viability. Pyrosequencing generated 273,102 reads for the five triplicate ice samples, which corresponded to 3,464 operational taxonomic units (OTUs). The distribution of the bacterial phyla in the perennial cave ice varied with age, organic content, and light exposure. Proteobacteria dominated the 1 and 900 years old organic rich ice deposits, while Actinobacteria was mostly found in 900 years old ice strata, and Firmicutes was best represented in 400 years old ice. Cyanobacteria and Chlorobi representatives were identified mainly from the ice block surface samples exposed to sunlight. Archaea was observed only in older ice strata, with a high incidence of Crenarchaeota and Thaumarchaeaota in the 400 years old ice, while Euryarchaeota dominated the 900 years old ice layers, with Methanomicrobia representing the predominant taxa. A large percentage (55.7%) of 16S rRNA gene amplicons corresponded to unidentified OTUs at genus or higher taxa levels, suggesting a greater undiscovered bacterial diversity in this glacial underground habitat. The prokaryotes distribution across the cave ice block revealed the presence of 99 phylotypes specific for different ice layers, in addition to the shared microbial community. Ice geochemistry represented an important factor that explained the microbial taxa distribution in the cave ice block, while the total organic carbon content had a direct impact on the cell density of the ice microcosm. Both bacterial and archaeal community structures appeared to be affected by climate variations during the ice formation, highlighting the cave ice microbiome as a source of putative paleoclimatic biomarkers. This report constitutes the first high-throughput sequencing study of the cave ice microbiome and its distribution across the perennial underground glacier of an alpine ice cave.

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