Microbial ecology yields new insights for future shipwreck conservation

Shipwrecks act as artificial reefs and provide a substrate and nutrients for a great diversity of microorganisms, which can contribute to either the deterioration or preservation of the ship. Precisely how diverse such communities are, and how they are organized, is still unknown. Here, researchers from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, identify the bacteria associated with a shipwreck from the 1960s. They find a highly diverse community on the wreck, consisting of at least 4,800 OTUs (Operational Taxonomic Units, roughly corresponding to species) from 28 bacterial phyla, including nitrogen-, carbon-, sulfur-, and iron-cycling species. Microbial community composition strongly differed between locations within the site, suggesting niche partitioning, in the same way that fungal species specialize in particular microhabitats within a forest, based on the local abiotic and biotic environment. The results are published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

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