Comparative analyses of the bacterial community of hydrothermal deposits and seafloor sediments across Okinawa Trough

Abstract As an ideal place to study back-arc basins and hydrothermal eco-system, Okinawa Trough has attracted the interests of scientists for decades. However, there are still no in-depth studies targeting the bacterial community of the seafloor sediments and hydrothermal deposits in Okinawa Trough. In the present study, we reported the bacterial community of the surface deposits of a newly found hydrothermal field in the southern Okinawa Trough, and the horizontal and vertical variation of bacterial communities in the sediments of the northern Okinawa Trough. The hydrothermal deposits had a relatively high 16S rRNA gene abundance but low bacterial richness and diversity. Epsilonproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes were predominant in hydrothermal deposits whereas Deltaproteobacteria , Gammaproteobacteria and Chloroflexi were abundant across all samples. The bacterial distribution in the seafloor of Okinawa Trough was significantly correlated to the content of total nitrogen, and had consistent relationship with total carbon. Gradual changes of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria were found with the distance away from hydrothermal fields, while the hydrothermal activity did not influence the distribution of the major clades of sulfate-reducing bacteria. Higher abundance of the sulfur cycle related genes ( aprA and dsrB ), and lower abundance of the bacterial ammonia-oxidizing related gene ( amoA ) were quantified in hydrothermal deposits. In addition, the present study also compared the inter-field variation of Epsilonproteobacteria among multi-types of hydrothermal vents, revealing that the proportion and diversity of this clade were quite various.