skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Insights into the ecology, evolution, and metabolism of the widespread Woesearchaeotal lineages

Journal Article · · Microbiome
 [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [5]
  1. Univ. of Hong Kong (China)
  2. Shenzen Univ. (China)
  3. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  4. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of Duisburg, Essen (Germany)
  5. City Univ. of Hong Kong (China); Univ. of Hong Kong (China)

Background: As a recently discovered member of the DPANN superphylum, Woesearchaeota account for a wide diversity of 16S rRNA gene sequences, but their ecology, evolution, and metabolism remain largely unknown. Results: Here, we assembled 133 global clone libraries/studies and 19 publicly available genomes to profile these patterns for Woesearchaeota. Phylogenetic analysis shows a high diversity with 26 proposed subgroups for this recently discovered archaeal phylum, which are widely distributed in different biotopes but primarily in inland anoxic environments. Ecological patterns analysis and ancestor state reconstruction for specific subgroups reveal that oxic status of the environments is the key factor driving the distribution and evolutionary diversity of Woesearchaeota. A selective distribution to different biotopes and an adaptive colonization from anoxic to oxic environments can be proposed and supported by evidence of the presence of ferredoxin-dependent pathways in the genomes only from anoxic biotopes but not from oxic biotopes. Metabolic reconstructions support an anaerobic heterotrophic lifestyle with conspicuous metabolic deficiencies, suggesting the requirement for metabolic complementarity with other microbes. Both lineage abundance distribution and co-occurrence network analyses across diverse biotopes confirmed metabolic complementation and revealed a potential syntrophic relationship between Woesearchaeota and methanogens, which is supported by metabolic modeling. If correct, Woesearchaeota may impact methanogenesis in inland ecosystems. Conclusions: The findings provide an ecological and evolutionary framework for Woesearchaeota at a global scale and indicate their potential ecological roles, especially in methanogenesis.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1479416
Journal Information:
Microbiome, Vol. 6, Issue 1; ISSN 2049-2618
Publisher:
BioMed CentralCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 131 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (70)

Microbial interactions: from networks to models journal July 2012
Explaining abundance-occupancy relationships in specialists and generalists: a case study on aquatic macroinvertebrates in standing waters journal May 2010
Analysis of Biological Networks book August 2007
Discovery of extremely halophilic, methyl-reducing euryarchaea provides insights into the evolutionary origin of methanogenesis journal May 2017
High occurrence of Pacearchaeota and Woesearchaeota (Archaea superphylum DPANN) in the surface waters of oligotrophic high-altitude lakes : Archaeal occurrence in high-altitude lakes journal January 2016
Significant contribution of Archaea to extant biomass in marine subsurface sediments journal July 2008
An improved Greengenes taxonomy with explicit ranks for ecological and evolutionary analyses of bacteria and archaea journal December 2011
Genomic resolution of a cold subsurface aquifer community provides metabolic insights for novel microbes adapted to high CO 2 concentrations : Genomic resolution of a high-CO journal July 2016
Random matrix theory journal April 2005
The ecology of the extremely halophilic archaea journal April 1994
Uncultured archaea in deep marine subsurface sediments: have we caught them all? journal November 2007
Towards a natural system of organisms: proposal for the domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya. journal June 1990
Microbial interactions during residual oil and n-fatty acid metabolism by a methanogenic consortium: Carbon sharing and 13C enrichment during methanogenic degradation of residual oil journal March 2012
Spatiotemporal variation of bacterial and archaeal communities in sediments of a drinking reservoir, Beijing, China journal December 2016
Global ecological patterns in uncultured Archaea journal October 2009
Partitioning core and satellite taxa from within cystic fibrosis lung bacterial communities journal December 2010
Conservation evaluation and phylogenetic diversity journal January 1992
Taxonomic, Phylogenetic, and Ecological Diversity of Methanogenic Archaea journal August 2000
Syntrophy in anaerobic global carbon cycles journal December 2009
Influences of plant type on bacterial and archaeal communities in constructed wetland treating polluted river water journal July 2016
Insights in the ecology and evolutionary history of the Miscellaneous Crenarchaeotic Group lineage journal August 2015
Microorganisms and their roles in fundamental biogeochemical cycles journal June 2011
Genomic Expansion of Domain Archaea Highlights Roles for Organisms from New Phyla in Anaerobic Carbon Cycling journal March 2015
Metagenomics: DNA sequencing of environmental samples journal October 2005
Microbial community compositions in different functional zones of Carrousel oxidation ditch system for domestic wastewater treatment journal February 2017
Interactive tree of life (iTOL) v3: an online tool for the display and annotation of phylogenetic and other trees journal April 2016
Co-occurrence patterns in aquatic bacterial communities across changing permafrost landscapes journal January 2016
Marine bacterial, archaeal and protistan association networks reveal ecological linkages journal March 2011
RAxML version 8: a tool for phylogenetic analysis and post-analysis of large phylogenies journal January 2014
Microbial Community Composition in the Marine Sediments of Jeju Island: Next-Generation Sequencing Surveys journal May 2016
Molecular ecological network analyses journal January 2012
Archaea of the Miscellaneous Crenarchaeotal Group are abundant, diverse and widespread in marine sediments journal May 2012
Phylogenetic Measures of Biodiversity journal March 2007
Archaea in Biogeochemical Cycles journal September 2013
ContigScape: a Cytoscape plugin facilitating microbial genome gap closing journal January 2013
ARB: a software environment for sequence data journal February 2004
Microbial syntrophy: interaction for the common good journal May 2013
Unusual biology across a group comprising more than 15% of domain Bacteria journal June 2015
Microbial community structure and diversity within hypersaline Keke Salt Lake environments journal November 2017
Using network analysis to explore co-occurrence patterns in soil microbial communities journal September 2011
Different microbial distributions in the Yellow River delta journal January 2017
A new view of the tree of life journal April 2016
Basic local alignment search tool journal October 1990
QIIME allows analysis of high-throughput community sequencing data journal April 2010
Partitioning abundance-based multiple-site dissimilarity into components: balanced variation in abundance and abundance gradients journal December 2016
Fitting Multivariate Models to Community Data: a Comment on Distance-Based Redundancy Analysis journal January 2001
Microbial Community Structure of Deep-sea Hydrothermal Vents on the Ultraslow Spreading Southwest Indian Ridge journal June 2017
Isolation of an autotrophic ammonia-oxidizing marine archaeon journal September 2005
The large-scale organization of the bacterial network of ecological co-occurrence interactions journal February 2010
Diversity and distribution of Archaea in global estuarine ecosystems journal October 2018
Insights into the phylogeny and coding potential of microbial dark matter journal July 2013
Potential recycling of thaumarchaeotal lipids by DPANN Archaea in seasonally hypoxic surface marine sediments journal May 2018
Predominant archaea in marine sediments degrade detrital proteins journal March 2013
Novel genes for nitrite reductase and Amo-related proteins indicate a role of uncultivated mesophilic crenarchaeota in nitrogen cycling: Role of mesophilic crenarchaeota in nitrogen cycling journal September 2005
Carbon dioxide concentration dictates alternative methanogenic pathways in oil reservoirs journal June 2013
Retroelement-guided protein diversification abounds in vast lineages of Bacteria and Archaea journal April 2017
Metagenomic resolution of microbial functions in deep-sea hydrothermal plumes across the Eastern Lau Spreading Center journal June 2015
A Comparison of Taxon Co-Occurrence Patterns for Macro- and Microorganisms journal June 2007
Picante: R tools for integrating phylogenies and ecology journal April 2010
Explaining the excess of rare species in natural species abundance distributions journal April 2003
The Microbial Engines That Drive Earth's Biogeochemical Cycles journal May 2008
Hyperthermophilic archaea are thriving in deep North Sea and Alaskan oil reservoirs journal October 1993
25 years of serving the community with ribosomal RNA gene reference databases and tools journal November 2017
Next-Generation DNA Sequencing Methods journal September 2008
Co-occurrence patterns in aquatic bacterial communities across changing permafrost landscapes journal January 2015
Environmental remodeling of human gut microbiota and antibiotic resistome in livestock farms journal March 2020
Biogeographical patterns and mechanisms of microbial community assembly that underlie successional biocrusts across northern China journal February 2021
Analysis of biological networks journal October 2009
RAxML version 8: a tool for phylogenetic analysis and post-analysis of large phylogenies text January 2014
Erratum: Using network analysis to explore co-occurrence patterns in soil microbial communities journal March 2014

Cited By (13)

Perspectives on Cultivation Strategies of Archaea journal August 2019
Natural groundwater nutrient fluxes exceed anthropogenic inputs in an ecologically impacted estuary: lessons learned from Mobile Bay, Alabama journal September 2019
Genomic diversity, lifestyles and evolutionary origins of DPANN archaea journal January 2019
Archaeal biogeography and interactions with microbial community across complex subtropical coastal waters journal June 2019
Community Structure and Abundance of Archaea in a Zostera marina Meadow: A Comparison between Seagrass-Colonized and Bare Sediment Sites journal November 2019
Genomic and transcriptomic insights into methanogenesis potential of novel methanogens from mangrove sediments journal June 2020
Archaea: forgotten players in the microbiome journal November 2018
A diverse uncultivated microbial community is responsible for organic matter degradation in the Black Sea sulphidic zone journal January 2020
Metagenomes and metatranscriptomes shed new light on the microbial-mediated sulfur cycle in a Siberian soda lake journal August 2019
Microbial Community Diversity Within Sediments from Two Geographically Separated Hadal Trenches journal March 2019
Genomic and transcriptomic insights into the ecology and metabolism of benthic archaeal cosmopolitan, Thermoprofundales (MBG-D archaea) journal December 2018
Distribution and Succession of Microbial Communities Along the Dispersal Pathway of Hydrothermal Plumes on the Southwest Indian Ridge journal November 2020
The Effect of Nitrogen Content on Archaeal Diversity in an Arctic Lake Region journal November 2019


Similar Records

Genomic expansion of Domain Archaea highlights roles for organisms from new phyla in anaerobic carbon cycling
Journal Article · Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Current Biology, 25(6):690-701 · OSTI ID:1479416

Evidence for non–methanogenic metabolisms in globally distributed archaeal clades basal to the Methanomassiliicoccales
Journal Article · Fri Nov 13 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Environmental Microbiology · OSTI ID:1479416

Retroelement-guided protein diversification abounds in vast lineages of Bacteria and Archaea
Journal Article · Mon Apr 03 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Nature Microbiology · OSTI ID:1479416

Related Subjects