Seasonal and spatial distribution of ammonia-oxidizing microorganism communities in surface sediments from the East China Sea

摘要

Ammonia oxidation plays a significant role in the nitrogen cycle in marine sediments. Seasonal and spatial distribution of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and betaproteobacteria (β-AOB) in surface sediments from the East China Sea (ECS) were investigated using ammonia monooxygenaseα subunit (amoA) gene. In order to characterize the community of AOA andβ-AOB, real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was carried out in this study, along with environmental parameters. The abundance ofβ-AOBamoA gene (2.17×106–4.54×107 copy numbers per gram wet weight sediment) was always greater than that of AOAamoA gene (2.18×105–9.89×106 copy numbers per gram wet weight sediment) in all sampling stations. The qPCR results were correlated with environmental parameters. AOAamoA gene copy numbers in April were positively related to temperature and nitrite concentration (p<0.05).β-AOBamoA gene copy numbers in August correlated negatively with salinity (p<0.01), and correlated positively with ammonium concentration (p<0.05). With the increase of salinity, theamoA gene copy ratio of AOB to AOA had a tendency to decrease, which suggestedβ-AOB dominated in the area of high level ammonium and AOA preferred high salinity area.