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DMSP-Producing Bacteria Are More Abundant in the Surface Microlayer than Subsurface Seawater of the East China Sea

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

Microbial production and catabolism of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), generating the climatically active gases dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and methanethiol (MeSH), have key roles in global carbon and sulfur cycling, chemotaxis, and atmospheric chemistry. Microorganisms in the sea surface microlayer (SML), the interface between seawater and atmosphere, likely play an important role in the generation of DMS and MeSH and their exchange to the atmosphere, but little is known about these SML microorganisms. Here, we investigated the differences between bacterial community structure and the distribution and transcription profiles of the key bacterial DMSP synthesis (dsyB and mmtN) and catabolic (dmdA and dddP) genes in East China Sea SML and subsurface seawater (SSW) samples. Per equivalent volume, bacteria were far more abundant (~ 7.5-fold) in SML than SSW, as were those genera predicted to produce DMSP. Indeed, dsyB (~ 7-fold) and mmtN (~ 4-fold), robust reporters for bacterial DMSP production, were also far more abundant in SML than SSW. In addition, the SML had higher dsyB transcripts (~ 3-fold) than SSW samples, which may contribute to the significantly higher DMSP level observed in SML compared with SSW. Furthermore, the abundance of bacteria with dmdA and their transcription were higher in SML than SSW samples. Bacteria with dddP and transcripts were also prominent, but less than dmdA and presented at similar levels in both layers. These data indicate that the SML might be an important hotspot for bacterial DMSP production as well as generating the climatically active gases DMS and MeSH, a portion of which are likely transferred to the atmosphere.

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Data Availability

The raw reads of the high throughput sequencing were deposited into the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database with accession number SRP174872 under the BioProject PRJNA511511. The partial sequences of the dsyB gene from clone libraries were available in the GenBank database with accession numbers MN232008 to MN232099.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate all the scientists and crew members on the Dongfang Hong 2 during the expedition for their great efforts and help in sample collection. We thank Yahui Gao of Xiamen University for providing Chl a data, and Yu Xin of Ocean University of China for providing nutrient measurements.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant 2016YFA0601303) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 91751202, 41730530, and 41476112) to X-HZ, and the Natural Environmental Research Council, UK (grants NE/N002385, NE/P012671, and NE/S001352) to JDT.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Marine Life Sciences, and Institute of Evolution & Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, China

    Hao Sun, Yunhui Zhang, Siyin Tan, Yanfen Zheng, Shun Zhou & Xiao-Hua Zhang

  2. Laboratory for Marine Ecology and Environmental Science, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266237, China

    Hao Sun, Gui-Peng Yang & Xiao-Hua Zhang

  3. Key Laboratory of Marine Chemistry Theory and Technology, Ministry of Education/Institute for Advanced Ocean Study, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Qian-Yao Ma & Gui-Peng Yang

  4. Institute of Marine Chemistry, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Gui-Peng Yang

  5. School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

    Jonathan D. Todd

  6. Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Xiao-Hua Zhang

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  1. Hao Sun
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  2. Yunhui Zhang
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  9. Xiao-Hua Zhang
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Contributions

X-HZ and JDT designed the experiments, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. HS collected samples, performed experiments, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. G-PY, YHZ, and YFZ analyzed the data. SZ performed statistical analysis. ST performed part of the qPCR experiments. Q-YM performed the DMS and DMSP detection. All the authors edited and approved the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jonathan D. Todd or Xiao-Hua Zhang.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Sun, H., Zhang, Y., Tan, S. et al. DMSP-Producing Bacteria Are More Abundant in the Surface Microlayer than Subsurface Seawater of the East China Sea. Microb Ecol 80, 350–365 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-020-01507-8

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