• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.309-319
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• 2010

To assess community structure and diversity of archaea, a clone sequencing analysis based on an archaeal 16S rRNA gene was conducted at three sediment depths of the continental slope and Ulleung Basin in the East Sea. A total of 311 and 342 clones were sequenced at the slope and basin sites, respectively. Marine Group I, which is known as the ammonia oxidizers, appeared to predominate in the surface sediment of both sites (97.3% at slope, 88.5% at basin). In the anoxic subsurface sediment of the slope and basin, the predominant archaeal group differed noticeably. Marine Benthic Group B dominated in the subsurface sediment of the slope. Marine Benthic Group D and Miscellaneous Crenarchaeotal Group were the second largest archaeal group at 8-9 cm and 18-19 cm depth, respectively. Marine Benthic Group C of Crenarchaeota occupied the highest proportion by accounting for more than 60% of total clones in the subsurface sediments of the basin site. While archaeal groups that use metal oxide as an electron acceptor were relatively more abundant at the basin sites with manganese (Mn) oxide-enriched surface sediment, archaeal groups related to the sulfur cycle were more abundant in the sulfidogenic sediments of the slope. Overall results indicate that archaeal communities in the Ulleung Basin show clear spatial variation with depth and sites according to geochemical properties the sediment. Archaeal communities also seem to play a significant role in the biogeochemical carbon (C), nitrogen (N), sulfur (S), and metal cycles at each site.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.144-151
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• 2005

During the past ten years, Archaea have been recognized as a widespread and significant component of marine picoplankton assemblages. More recently, the presence of novel archaeal phylogenetic lineages has been discovered in coastal marine environments, freshwater lakes, polar seas, and deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Therefore, we conducted an investigation into the archaeal community existing in tidal flat sediment collected from Ganghwa Island, Korea. Phylogenetic analysis of archaeal 16S rDNA amplified directly from tidal flat sediment DNA revealed the presence of two major lineages, belonging to the Crenarchaeota ($53.9\%$) and Euryarchaeota ($46.1\%$) phyla. A total of 102 clones were then sequenced and analyzed by comprehensive phylogenetic analysis. The sequences determined in our samples were found to be closely related to the sequences of clones which had been previously obtained from a variety of marine environments. Archaeal clones exhibited higher similarities ($83.25 - 100\%$) to sequences..from other environments in the public database than did those ($75.22 - 98.46\%$) of previously reported bacterial clones obtained from tidal flat sediment. The results of our study suggest that the archaeal community in tidal flat sediment is remarkably diverse.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.164-168
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• 2014

The ecosystem of the Arctic region has been increasingly affected by global warming. Archaeal ammonia monooxygenase alpha subunit coding gene (amoA) which is a key enzyme for nitrification was used to investigate the effect of runoff water of ice melt on microbial community of nitrogen cycle. The archaeal amoA genes at coastal area of Svalbard, Arctic region were PCR-amplified and sequenced after clone library construction. Analysis of archaeal amoA gene clone libraries suggested that the station 188 which is in the vicinity to the area of runoff water harbor lower ammonia-oxidizing archaeal diversity than the station 176 and 184. The average amino acid sequence identity within all archaeal amoA gene clones was 94% (with 91% nucleotide sequence identity). While all the clones of the station 188 were affiliated with Nitrosoarchaeaum clade containing strains isolated from low-salinity and terrestrial environments, about 45% of total clones of the station 176 and 184 were related to marine Nitosopumilus clade. Interestingly, other typical archaeal amoA gene clones of thaumarchaeal I.1b clade frequently retrieved from terrestrial environments was identified at station 188. Microbial community of nitrogen cycle in marine sediment might be affected by input of sediments caused by runoff glacier melt waters.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.232-235
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• 2007

Mesophilic Crenarchaeota have been known to be predominant among ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms in terrestrial and marine environments. In this study, we determined the archaeal phylotypes carrying specific amoA by combining digital PCR and multiplex-nested PCR. Analysis of samples in which amoA and 16S rRNA gene were amplified showed that amoA gene diversity was relatively higher than that of 16S rRNA gene. Nitrifying archaeal group I.1a was dominant over I.1b group of crenarchaota and euryarchaeota. This approach could be applied for interrelating a functional gene to a specific phylotype in natural environments.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.249-256
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• 2014

Permafrost is frozen soil below $0^{\circ}C$ for two or more years. Surface of permafrost is called as active layer that seasonally thaws during the summer. Although the thawing of permafrost may deepen the active layer and consequently increase the microbial activity, the microbial community structure in this habitat has not yet been well described. In this study, we presented bacterial and archaeal diversity in the active layer soil from Resolute, Canada using pyrosequencing analysis. The soil sample was collected from the surface of the marsh covered with moss and Carex. A total of 7,796 bacterial reads for 40 phyla and 245 archaeal reads for 4 phyla were collected, reflecting the high diversity of bacteria. Predominant bacterial groups were Proteobacteria (37.7%) and Bacteroidetes (30.0%) in this study. Major groups in Archaea were Euryarchaeota (51.4%) and Thaumarchaeota (46.1%). Both methane producing archaea and consuming bacteria were detected in this study. Although it might be difficult to characterize microbial community with only one sample, it could be used for the basis of assessing the relative importance of the specific groups with a high resolution on the bacterial and archaeal community in this habitat.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.867-875
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• 2016

Archaea substantially contribute to global geochemical cycling and energy cycling and are impacted by land-use change. However, the response of archaeal communities to a change from upland field to paddy field has been poorly characterized. Here, soil samples were collected at two depths (0-20 cm and 20-40 cm) from one upland field and six paddy fields that were established on former upland fields at different times (1, 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40 years before the study). Barcoded pyrosequencing was employed to assess the archaeal communities from the samples at taxonomic resolutions from phylum to genus levels. The total archaeal operational taxonomic unit (OTU) richness showed a significant positive correlation with the land-use change duration. Two phyla, Euryarchaeota and Crenarchaeota, were recorded throughout the study. Both the relative abundance and OTU richness of Euryarchaeota increased at both depths but increased more steadily at the subsurface rather than at the surface. However, these data of Crenarchaeota were the opposite. Additionally, the archaeal composition exhibited a significant relationship with C/N ratios, total phosphorus, soil pH, Olsen phosphorus, and the land-use change duration at several taxonomic resolutions. Our results emphasize that after a change from upland fields to paddy fields, the archaeal diversity and composition changed, and the duration is an important factor in addition to the soil chemical properties.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.674-684
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• 2020

To investigate the differences of bacterial- and archaeal communities depending on kind of wastewater (municipal/livestock) and on treating conditions of basins, sludges were sampled from 10 basins of 3 municipal wastewater treatment plants(WWTP) with A2O and a activated sludge sample from a livestock WWTP. The metagenomic DNAs of the sludge samples were extracted and amplified with primers, 27F/518R for bacteria and Arch519F/A958R for archaea, and pyrosequenced with Roche 454 GS-FLX Titanium. As results, the bacterial communities in basins of municipal WWTPs were quite different from those of livestock WWTP, but within the same municipal WWTP their community structures were similar to each other regardless of different environmental conditions such as O₂. And their archaeal communities resulted from anaerobic·anoxic basins were clustered only within communities originated from the same WWTP. Furthermore Seo-bu WWTP with high bacterial diversity and species richness performed better N/P-removal compared to the orther WWTPs.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.9
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• pp.1187-1196
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• 2013

Global warming will have far-reaching effects on our ecosystem. However, its effects on Antarctic soils have been poorly explored. To assess the effects of warming on microbial abundance and community composition, we sampled Antarctic soils from the King George Island in the Antarctic Peninsula and incubated these soils at elevated temperatures of $5^{\circ}C$ and $8^{\circ}C$ for 14 days. The reduction in total organic carbon and increase in soil respiration were attributed to the increased proliferation of Bacteria, Fungi, and Archaea. Interestingly, bacterial ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) genes were predominant over archaeal amoA, unlike in many other environments reported previously. Phylogenetic analyses of bacterial and archaeal amoA communities via clone libraries revealed that the diversity of amoA genes in Antarctic ammonia-oxidizing prokaryotic communities were temperature-insensitive. Interestingly, our data also showed that the amoA of Antarctic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) communities differed from previously described amoA sequences of cultured isolates and clone library sequences, suggesting the presence of novel Antarctic-specific AOB communities. Denitrification-related genes were significantly reduced under warming conditions, whereas the abundance of amoA and nifH increased. Barcoded pyrosequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene revealed that Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Actinobacteria were the major phyla in Antarctic soils and the effect of short-term warming on the bacterial community was not apparent.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.125-133
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• 2012

Anaerobic digestion is an alternative method to digest food wastes and to produce methane that can be used as a renewable energy source. We investigated bacterial and archaeal community structures in a three-stage methane production process using food wastes with concomitant wastewater treatment. The three-stage methane process is composed of semianaerobic hydrolysis/acidogenic, anaerobic acidogenic, and strictly anaerobic methane production steps in which food wastes are converted methane and carbon dioxide. The microbial diversity was determined by the nucleotide sequences of 16S rRNA gene library and quantitative real-time PCR. The major eubacterial population of the three-stage methane process was belonging to VFA-oxidizing bacteria. The archaeal community consisted mainly of two species of hydrogenotrophic methanogen (Methanoculleus). Family Picrophilaceae (Order Thermoplasmatales) was also observed as a minor population. The predominance of hydrogenotrophic methanogen suggests that the main degradation pathway of this process is different from the classical methane production systems that have the pathway based on acetogenesis. The domination of hydrogenotrophic methanogen (Methanoculleus) may be caused by mesophilic digestion, neutral pH, high concentration of ammonia, short HRT, and interaction with VFA-oxidizing bacteria (Tepidanaerobacter etc.).

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.209-217
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• 2011

Archaeal communities were investigated using 454 pyrosequencing technology based on 16S rRNA gene in 11 samples collected from six different full-scale anaerobic digesters. Observed operational taxonomic units (OTUs) estimated from the archaeal 16S rRNA gene sequences were 13-55 OTUs (3% cutoff) which was corresponded to 29-89% of Chao1 richness estimates. In the anaerobic digesters there were archaeal sequences within the orders Thermoproteales, Thermoplasmatales, Desulfurococcales as well as within the orders Methanomicrobiales, Methanobacteriales, Methanococcales, Methanosarcinales, and Methanocellales, which are known to produce methane. Among these orders, Methanococcales known to produce methane using hydrogen was the predominant taxon and constituted 51.8-99.7% of total sequences. All samples showed a very similar community structure (Pearson correlation coefficient=0.99) except for one sample based on a heat map analysis. In addition, canonical correspondence analysis correlating archaeal communities to the environmental variables demonstrated that digester temperature and total solids removal rate were the two important explanatory variables. Overall results suggested that environmental and operational variables of anaerobic digester are important factors determining archaeal diversity and community structure.