Discriminative biogeochemical signatures of methanotrophs in different chemosynthetic habitats at an active mud volcano in the Canadian Beaufort Sea.

Several mud volcanoes are active in the Canadian Beaufort Sea. In this study, we investigated vertical variations in methanotrophic communities in sediments of the mud volcano MV420 (420 m water depth) by analyzing geochemical properties, microbial lipids, and nucleic acid signatures. Three push cores were collected with a remotely operated vehicle from visually discriminative habitats that were devoid of megafauna and/microbial mats (DM) to the naked eye, covered with bacterial mats (BM), or colonized by siboglinid tubeworms (ST). All MV420 sites showed the presence of aerobic methane oxidation (MOx)- and anaerobic methane oxidation (AOM)-related lipid biomarkers (4α-methyl sterols and sn-2-hydroxyarchaeol, respectively), which were distinctly different in comparison with a reference site at which these compounds were not detected. Lipid biomarker results were in close agreement with 16S rRNA analyses, which revealed the presence of MOx-related bacteria (Methylococcales) and AOM-related archaea (ANME-2 and ANME-3) at the MV420 sites. 4α-methyl sterols derived from Methylococcales predominated in the surface layer at the BM site, which showed a moderate methane flux (0.04 mmol cm y), while their occurrence was limited at the DM (0.06 mmol cm y) and ST (0.01 mmol cm y) sites. On the other hand, C-depleted sn-2-hydroxyarchaeol potentially derived from ANME-2 and/or ANME-3 was abundant in down-core sediments at the ST site. Our study indicates that a niche diversification within this mud volcano system has shaped distinct methanotrophic communities due to availability of electron acceptors in association with varying degrees of methane flux and bioirrigation activity.