Re­search Themes

The Joint Re­search Group on Deep-Sea Eco­logy and Tech­no­logy, headed by Prof. Antje Boe­t­ius, is co-fun­ded by the Al­fred We­gener In­sti­tute Helm­holtz Cen­ter for Po­lar and Mar­ine Re­search and the Max-Planck-In­sti­tute for Mar­ine Mi­cro­bi­o­logy. We com­bine the ex­pert­ise of the MPI branch (former Mi­cro­bial Hab­itat Group, 2003-2010) in mar­ine mi­cro­bial eco­logy and biogeo­chem­istry, the de­vel­op­ment of new mo­lecu­lar, bio­lo­gical and in situ ana­lyt­ical meth­ods, with the ex­pert­ise of the AWI branch (former Deep-Sea Re­search group, 1999-2008) in study­ing po­lar en­vir­on­ments, pur­su­ing long-term en­vir­on­mental ob­ser­va­tions, and sampling in the deep sea.

The main goals of the HGF-MPG Deep-Sea Eco­logy and Tech­no­logy group are (1) to ob­tain “true” quant­it­at­ive in­sight to eco­sys­tem struc­ture, dy­nam­ics and biogeo­chem­ical fluxes based on in situ meas­ure­ments (2) to show the ef­fects of global change on deep-sea eco­sys­tems and in­clud­ing vari­ations in mi­cro­bial to mac­ro­faunal biod­iversity on rel­ev­ant spa­tial and tem­poral scales, and (3) to un­ravel the func­tion­ing of key mi­croor­gan­isms in spe­cific deep-sea en­vir­on­ment. To quantify trans­port and re­ac­tions in sub­mar­ine and subgla­cial deep-sea eco­sys­tems we de­velop and im­prove in situ in­stru­ments and de­scribe hab­it­ats with a vari­ety of geo­chem­ical meth­ods. To study the in­hab­it­ing (mi­cro)fauna and to de­scribe their func­tions we use state of the art mo­lecu­lar ap­proaches.

Here we re­port mostly the MPI-centered re­search, more in­form­a­tion for the AWI-centered re­search is here.

ON­GO­ING RE­SEARCH THEMES (since 2016)

x
MICROBIAL KEY PLAYERS AT SEEPS AND VENTS
(c) R.L. Perez
Ice
MICROBIAL COMMUNITY DYNAMICS IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN
(c) S. Rogge
manganese
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AND RISKS OF DEEP-SEA MINING
(c) Y. Bodur
x
TECHNOLOGIES AND INFRASTRUCTURE
(c) *Will be updated soon*

Mi­cro­bial key play­ers at seeps and vents

Research Project

Seeps and vents haul re­duced com­pounds, such as the hy­dro­c­ar­bons me­tha­ne and eth­ane, as well as crude oils, hy­dro­gen gas, and sul­fi­de from the deep sub­sur­face. Those com­pounds are po­ten­ti­al en­er­gy sour­ces for he­te­ro­tro­phic and che­mo­a­u­to­tro­phic mi­cro­or­ga­nisms. Our team fo­cuses on the an­ae­ro­bic oxi­da­ti­on of al­ka­nes by ar­chaea in the seaf­loor. The­se ar­chaea are ab­un­dant in gas-rich seep and vents and sub­sur­face re­ser­voirs and con­su­me the green­hou­se gas me­tha­ne, eth­ane, but also long-chain al­kanes. Ad­di­tio­nal­ly, we stu­dy the tur­no­ver of re­du­ced com­pounds and mi­cro­or­ga­nisms that thri­ve on the­se sub­stra­tes at vent-de­ri­ved hy­dro­ther­mal plu­mes.  

As ba­sis of our re­se­arch we ex­plo­re and samp­le low tem­pe­ra­tu­re hy­dro­c­ar­bon seeps such as the Cam­pe­che Knolls in the Gulf of Me­xi­co, the al­ka­ne-rich hy­dro­ther­mal Gu­ay­mas Ba­sin vents of the Gulf of Ca­li­for­nia, and the hy­dro­ther­mal vents of the Arc­tic sprea­ding ridges. We ap­p­ly a va­rie­ty of in situ tech­no­lo­gies such as bent­hic cham­bers, mul­ti­sen­sor mo­du­les, and ca­me­ra plat­forms, ope­ra­ted from re­mo­te­ly ope­ra­ted ve­hi­cles such as ROV Quest (MA­RUM, Bre­men) and Oce­an Floor Ob­ser­va­ti­on Sys­tem (OFOS; AWI, Bre­mer­ha­ven). On the ship we per­form in­cu­ba­ti­on ex­pe­ri­ments to as­sess tur­no­ver ra­tes. In the home la­bo­ra­to­ries we use se­di­ment sam­ples from our ex­ped­i­tions to cul­tu­re spe­ci­fic mi­cro­or­gan­isms that thri­ve on nat­ural gas and oil con­stitu­ents. We study the cul­tured or­gan­isms with mole­cu­lar ap­proa­ches, in­clu­ding se­quen­cing tech­niques such as metage­no­mics and meta­tran­scrip­to­mics as well as me­ta­bo­li­te ana­ly­sis and fluo­re­scence in situ hy­bri­di­za­t­i­on. 

Re­cent high­lights in­clude the cul­tiv­a­tion of no­vel ther­mo­philic ar­chaea that at oxi­di­ze meth­ane but also mul­ti-car­bon al­kanes. We in­vest­ig­ate their func­tion­ing and the cata­lysis in their key en­zymes. We de­term­ine the im­print of mi­croor­gan­isms on meth­ane-de­rived car­bon, hy­dro­gen, and clumped iso­tope pat­terns and the mech­an­isms un­der­ly­ing these pat­tern. This al­lows us a deeper un­der­stand­ing of sub­sur­face car­bon flu­xes wi­t­hin the se­di­ments. Wa­ter co­lumn pro­jects in­clu­de the mi­cro­bio­lo­gi­cal cha­rac­te­riza­t­i­on of hy­dro­ther­mal vent and plu­me com­mu­nit­ies. By con­tri­bu­tion to the Ex­cel­lence Clus­ter ‘The Oce­an­floor – Ear­t­h’s un­char­ted in­ter­face’ at MA­RUM, Uni­ver­si­ty Bre­men we aim to in­te­gra­te our re­sults into re­gional and global car­bon cycle mod­els.

Contributors

Sci­ent­ists & PhDs: Gun­ter We­ge­ner (PI: lead), Da­vid Be­ni­to Me­ri­no, Ced­ric Hahn, Ra­fa­el Laso Pé­rez, Mas­si­mi­lia­no Mo­la­ri, Han­na Zehn­le, Antje Boetius

Laboratory support: Su­san­ne Men­ger, Mar­tina Al­isch

Financial support: DFG Cluster of Ex­cel­lence ‘The Ocean Floor – Earth’s Un­charted In­ter­face’ at MARUM, Uni­versity Bre­men

Former members: Vio­la Kru­ken­berg, Emil Ruff


 

Key pub­lic­a­tions

  • Ono, S.,  Rhim, J.H., Gruen, D.S., Tauber, H., Kölling, M., Wegener, G. (2021) Clumped isotopologue fractionation by microbial cultures performing the anaerobic oxidation of methane, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 293, 70-85.
  • Wang, Y., Wegener, G., Ruff, S.E., Wang, F. (2020) Methyl/alkyl‐coenzyme M reductase‐based anaerobic alkane oxidation in archaea. Environmental Microbiology.
  • Hahn, C.J., Laso-Pérez, R., Vulcano, F., Vaziourakis, K.-M., Stokke, R. Steen, I.H., Teske, A., Boetius, A.. Liebeke, M., Amann, R., Knittel, K., Wegener, G. (2020)  “Candidatus Ethanoperedens,” a Thermophilic Genus of Archaea Mediating the Anaerobic Oxidation of Ethane. mBio 11(2).
  • Laso-Pérez R., Hahn C., van Vliet D.M., Tegetmeyer H., Schubotz F., Smit N.T., Pape T., Sahling H., Bohrmann G., Boetius A., Knittel K., Wegener G. (2019) Anaerobic degradation of non-methane alkanes by "Candidatus Methanoliparia" in hydrocarbon seeps of the Gulf of Mexico. mBio 10(4):e01814-19. doi:10.1128/mBio.01814-19
  • Wang Y., Wegener G., Hou J., Wang F., Xiao X. (2019) Expanding anaerobic alkane metabolism in the domain of Archaea. Nature Microbiology. 4:595-602. doi:10.1038/s41564-019-0364-2r
  • Krukenberg V., Riedel D., Gruber-Vodicka H. R., Buttigieg P.L., Tegetmeyer H.E., Boetius A. , Wegener G. (2018) Gene expression and ultrastructure of meso- and thermophilic methanotrophic consortia. Environ. Microbiol., 20(5):1651-1666  doi:10.1111/1462-2920.14077
  • Laso-Pérez R., Krukenberg V., Musat F., Wegener G. (2018) Establishing anaerobic hydrocarbon-degrading enrichment cultures under strictly anoxic conditions. Nature Protocols, 13(6):1310-1330. doi:10.1038/nprot.2018.030
  • Kellermann M.Y., Yoshinaga M.Y., Wegener G., Krukenberg V., Hinrichs K.-U. (2016).Tracing the production and fate of individual archaeal intact polar lipids by stable isotope probing, Organic Geochemistry. doi:10.1016/j.orggeochem.2016.02.004.
  • Krukenberg V., Harding K., Richter M., Glöckner F.-O., Gruber Vodicka H., Adam B., Berg J., Knittel K., Tegetmeyer H.E., Boetius A., Wegener G. (2016) Candidatus Desulfofervidus auxilii, a hydrogenotrophic sulfate-reducing bacterium involved in the thermophilic anaerobic oxidation of methane. Environmental Microbiology, 18:3073-3091. doi: 10.1111/1462-2920.13283.
  • Laso-Pérez R., Wegener G., Knittel K., Widdel F., Harding K. J., Krukenberg V., Meier D. V., Richter M., Tegetmeyer H. E., Riedel D., Richnow H.-H., Adrian L., Thorsten R., Lechtenfeld O., Musat F. (2016) Thermophilic archaea activate butane via alkyl-CoM formation. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature20152.
  • Wegener G., Kellermann, M.Y., Elvert, M. (2016) Tracking activity and function of microorganisms by stable isotope probing of membrane lipids (invited review). Current Opinion in Biotechnology. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2016.04.022
  • Wegener G., Krukenberg V., Ruff S.E., Kellermann M.Y., Knittel K. (2016). Metabolic capabilities of microorganisms involved in and associated with the anaerobic oxidation of methane. Frontiers in Microbiology. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2016.00046.
  • Yoshinaga, M.Y., Holler, T., Goldhammer, T., Wegener, G., Pohlman, J.W., Brunner, B., Kuypers, M.M.M., Hinrichs, K.-U., Elvert, M. (2014) Carbon isotope equilibration during sulphate-limited anaerobic oxidation of methane, Nature Geoscience. doi: 10.1038/ngeo2069
  • Wegener, G., Bausch, M., Holler, T., Nguyen, M. T., Prieto Mollar, X.,, Kellermann, M.Y., Hinrichs, K-U. and Boetius, A. (2012) Assessing sub-seafloor microbial activity by combined stable isotope probing with deuterated water and 13C-bicarbonate. Microbiol. 14(6) 1517-1527 doi: 10.1111/j.1462-2920.2012.02739.x
  • Kellermann, M.Y., Wegener, G., Elvert, M., Yoshinaga, M.Y., Lin, Y.-L., Holler, T., Prieto Mollar, X., Knittel, K., Hinrichs, K.-U. (2012) Autotrophy as a predominant mode of carbon fixation in anaerobic methane-oxidizing microbial communities, Proc Natl Acad Sc USA, 109 (49) 19321-19326. org/10.1073/pnas.1208795109
  • Holler, T., Widdel, F., Knittel, K., Amann, R., Kellermann, M. Y., Hinrichs, K. U., Teske, A., Boetius, A. & Wegener, G. (2011). Thermophilic anaerobic oxidation of methane by marine microbial consortia. ISME J, 5(12), 1946-1956. doi: 10.1038/ismej.2011.77
  • Wegener, G., Niemann, H., Elvert, M., Hinrichs K.-U. and Boetius, A. (2008) Assimilation of methane and inorganic carbon by microbial communities mediating the anaerobic oxidation of methane. Environ. Microbiol. 10 (9), 2287–2298. doi: 10.1111/j.1462-2920.2008.01653.x.

A com­plete re­cord of pub­lic­a­tions can be found here

Bacteria
A consortia of Candidatus Syntrophoarchaeum (red) and sulfate-reducing bacteria (green)
(c) R. L. Perez

Mi­cro­bial com­munity dy­nam­ics in the Arc­tic Ocean

Research Projects

FRAM (FRontiers in Arctic Marine Monitoring)

FRAM is a long-term ob­ser­vat­ory for year-round bio­lo­gical, ocean­o­graphic and biogeo­chem­ical ob­ser­va­tions in Fram Strait, the ma­jor gate­way between the At­lantic and Arc­tic Ocean. FRAM builds on the Long Term Eco­lo­gical Re­search Site (LTER) HAUSGARTEN es­tab­lished in 1999. The mul­tidiscip­lin­ary ap­proach of FRAM elu­cid­ates bio­lo­gical re­sponses to fluc­tu­ations in ocean cir­cu­la­tion, wa­ter mass prop­er­ties and sea ice ex­tent from sur­face to the sea­floor, dis­tin­guish­ing nat­ural vari­ab­il­ity from hu­man im­pact. These in­sights con­trib­ute to un­der­stand­ing the ef­fects of cli­mate change on the Arc­tic Ocean, a re­gion severely af­fected by rising wa­ter tem­per­at­ures and At­lan­ti­fic­a­tion. Within the FRAM “Microbial Observatory”, our group stud­ies the struc­ture and func­tion of mi­cro­bial com­munit­ies across Fram Strait, with em­phasis on biogeo­graphic and tem­poral vari­ab­il­ity as well as the con­nectiv­ity between wa­ter, sea ice and sed­i­ment.

Feeding ecology of benthic communities in Central Arctic

With the aim to ex­plore di­verse eco­sys­tems in Arc­tic Ocean, as an ad­di­tional side pro­ject, our group ex­plores the feed­ing eco­logy of benthic com­munit­ies, mostly com­posed by bacteriosponges, dwell­ing on top of Karasik Seamounts in Cent­ral Arc­tic. The main ob­ject­ive is to elu­cid­ate the mech­an­isms that fa­cil­it­ate the pres­ence and sta­bil­ity of dense sponge as­semblage in oli­go­trophic con­di­tions, with spe­cial em­phasis on the role that mi­cro­bial sym­bionts plays in the func­tion­ing of the holo­bi­ont. We use a mul­tidiscip­lin­ary ap­proach, in­clud­ing stable and com­pound spe­cific iso­tope ana­lysis, meta-ge­n­om­ics and meta-tran­scrip­tom­ics.

 

Objectives and methodologies

As part of the Mi­cro­bial Ob­ser­vat­ory, we want to as­sess the im­pact of en­vir­on­mental changes on Arc­tic mi­cro­bial biod­iversity, func­tion and dis­tri­bu­tion, de­cipher mi­cro­bial in­ter­ac­tions, and gen­er­ate a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of mi­cro­bial pro­cesses that gov­ern car­bon flux and biogeo­chem­ical pro­cesses. Fur­ther­more, we aim at es­tab­lish­ing best prac­tices for mi­cro­bial ob­ser­va­tions in the Arc­tic Ocean .

  • Spatial and long-term dynamics: annual sampling of pelagic and benthic communities from different water depths and water mass regimes across Fram Strait; analyzed by amplicon sequencing and metagenomics
  • Seasonal variability: automated sampling of free-living and particle-associated microbial communities by autonomous devices (RAS water samplers and sediment traps) deployed on seafloor moorings; analyzed by amplicon sequencing
  • Functional capacities and gene expression; analyzed by meta-omic sequencing
  • Microbial communities in sea ice; connectivity between sea ice, water and sediment
  • Feeding and functional ecology of bacteriosponge community and the role of associated microbes
  • Ongoing collaborations with Katja Metfies, Eva-Maria Nöthig, Sinhue Torres-Valdes, Wilken-Jon von Appen and Morten Iversen (AWI) to contextualize prokaryotic information with phytoplankton growth patterns, nutrient budgets, oceanography and particle flux.
  • In addition collaborations with Anna de Kluijver and Jack Middelburg (Utrecht Univ.) to analyze the stable and compound specific isotopes in sponges, and Beate Slaby and Ute Hentschel (GEOMAR) for meta-omic analysis. With AWI MICADAS Lab (https://www.awi.de/en/science/geosciences/marine-geochemistry/micadas.html) for radiocarbon measurements.

Recent cruises

  • RV Polarstern PS124; Antarctic (2021)
  • RV Polarstern PS121; Fram Strait (2019)
  • RV Polarstern PS114; Fram Strait (2018)
  • RV Maria S Merian MSM77; Fram Strait (2018)
  • RV Polarstern PS109; Greenland (2017)
  • RV Polarstern PS107; Fram Strait (2017)
  • RV Polastern PS101 Karasik Seamounts (2016)

Contributors

Scientists and PhDs: Christina Bi­en­hold, Mat­thias Wietz, Pier L. But­ti­gieg, Teresa Mor­ganti, Magda Car­dozo Mino, Fe­lix Janssen, Frank Wen­zhöfer, Antje Boetius

Laboratory Support: Jakob Barz, Susanne Menger, Mar­tina Al­isch, Theresa Hargesheimer (AWI)

Tech­nical Sup­port: Volker Asen­dorf, Axel Nord­hausen, Elena Schiller (AWI)

Link:

https://www.awi.de/en/expedition/observatories/ocean-fram.html


 

Major achievements since 2017

  • Identification of key pelagic and benthic bacterial groups in Fram Strait, as well as physical and biological processes driving spatial community dynamics (Cardozo Mino et al. Preprint, Fadeev et al. 2018, Hoffmann et al. 2017)
  • Identification of sea ice and ice-algal aggregates as major drivers of carbon export and vertical microbial connectivity in the Arctic Ocean (Rapp et al. 2018, Fadeev et al. Preprint)
  • First insights into seasonal and inter-annual dynamics and drivers of microbial community structure and function in Fram Strait (Wietz, Cardozo-Mino, Bienhold)
  • Central Arctic seamounts host large biomass of Geodia sponges, which act as ecosystem engineers shaping benthic microbial communities (Morganti, Molari)
  • Characterization of the phylogeny, environmental distribution, abundance and metabolic potential of Woeseiales bacteria, global members of marine sediment communities (Hoffmann et al. 2020)
ice
(c) M. Wietz
ice
(c) Elena Prieto Turienzo
X
(c) S. Rogge
X
(c) M. Cardozo Mino
X
(c) M. Wietz
X
(c) M. Cardozo Mino
sponge
Sponge Community
(c) PS101 AWI OFOS system
sponge
Sponge Community
(c) PS101 AWI OFOS system

En­vir­on­mental im­pacts and risks of deep-sea min­ing

Research Project

The JPIO Pro­ject Min­ing Im­pact II is about the En­vir­on­mental im­pacts and risks of deep-sea min­ing for Man­ganese (bet­ter: Poly­metal­lic) Nod­ules. MiningIm­pact II in­volves in­sti­tu­tions from all around Europe. While be­ing in­teg­rated on the min­is­ter level, fund­ing for the in­di­vidual part­ners is provided by na­tional fund­ing agen­cies (BMBF in case of MPI) and runs from Aug. 2018 un­til end of Feb. 2022.

We are look­ing at dis­turb­ance ef­fects on mega­fauna com­munit­ies as well as mi­cro­bial com­munit­ies and their biogeo­chem­ical func­tions. In case of mega­fauna, in­vest­ig­a­tions are mainly based on high-res­ol­u­tion ima­ging and video ob­ser­va­tions of the sea­floor by means of OFOS sur­veys. Meth­ods to in­vest­ig­ate mi­cro­bial com­munit­ies will in­clude NGS stud­ies of DNA and to some ex­tent RNA, mi­cro­scopy (AODC, (CARD)FISH). As­sess­ment of ef­fects on biogeo­chem­ical func­tions will be based on DIC & ex­tra­cel­lu­lar en­zymatic activ­it­ies as well as on res­pir­a­tion rates cal­cu­lated from in situ mi­cro­sensor pro­files and in situ nod­ule in­cub­a­tions.

Recent Cruises

SO268/1 (PI: P. Linke, GEO­MAR): 17. Feb. 2019 - 29. Mar. 2019 (Man­zanillo, MEX - Man­zanillo, MEX)

SO268/2 (PI: M. Haeckel, GEO­MAR): 1. Apr. 2019 - 28. May. 2019 (Man­zanillo, MEX - Man­zanillo, MEX)

MiningImpactII cruise - Mangan21 (PI: An­nemiek/​BGR) Is­land Pride provided by Ocean Infinity and chartered by BGR: 4. Apr. 2021 to mid May 2021 (about 42 days) (San Diego - San Diego, USA)

 

Work­ing areas are in the Ger­man and Bel­gium Li­cense Area in the east­ern Part of the Clarion Clip­per­ton Frac­ture Zone (CCZ) in the trop­ical NE Pa­cific.

For fur­ther in­form­a­tion please fol­low: https://miningimpact.geomar.de/

 

Contributors

Sci­ent­ists & PhDs: Fe­lix Janssen (PI: Pro­ject Man­age­ment), Frank Wen­zhöfer (PI: In situ res­pir­a­tion stud­ies), Massi Mol­ari (PI: Mi­cro­bial Com­munit­ies & Func­tions), Au­tun Purser (PI: Mega­fauna & Hab­itat; AWI), Ju­lia M. Otte (Mi­cro­bial Com­munit­ies), Batuhan C. Yapan (Mi­cro­bial Com­munit­ies), *Yasemin Bodur (Mega­fauna), Tanja Strat­mann, Antje Boetius

(*former members of the group)

Labor­at­ory Sup­port: Jakob Barz, Susanne Menger

Tech­nical Sup­port: Volker Asen­dorf, Axel Nord­hausen, Elena Schiller (AWI)

 

Links

SO268 Cruise Blog:

https://www.oceanblogs.org/eadsm/

Movie about our work on board:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiJOUBdi4J0&feature=youtu.be

Television Report about our cruise:

https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/zdf-morgenmagazin/moma-future-bergbau-am-meeresgrund-100.html

 


 

Major achievements since 2019

 
  • Molari, M., Janssen, F., *Vonnahme, T. R., Wenzhöfer, F. and Boetius, A. (2020): The contribution of microbial communities in polymetallic nodules to the diversity of the deep-sea microbiome of the Peru Basin (4130-4198 m depth) , Biogeosciences, 17, 3203-3222. doi: 10.5194/bg-17-3203-2020
  • *Vonnahme T.R., Molari M., Janssen F., Wenzhöfer F., Haeckel M., Titschack T., Boetius A. Ef­fects of a deep-sea min­ing ex­per­i­ment on sea­floor mi­cro­bial com­munit­ies and func­tions after 26 years. Sci­ence Ad­vances. Science Advances. 29 Apr 2020: Vol. 6, no. 18, eaaz5922. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz5922.
Mining Impact Logo
Team
MPI Team of SO268
(c) J.Otte
Sonne
Sunset during SO268-2
(c) J.Otte
Deployments
Deployments
(c) J.Otte
X
Manganese nodule field
(c) Y. Bodur

In situ and in silico tech­no­lo­gies for stud­ies of mi­cro­bial com­munit­ies and func­tions

Research Projects

In situ technologies

Re­mote po­lar and deep-sea re­gions host many un­ex­plored eco­sys­tems with un­known func­tions in biogeo­chem­ical cycles and un­ex­plored biod­iversity. Be­cause of tech­no­lo­gical and lo­gist­ical chal­lenges, in situ ob­ser­va­tions of en­vir­on­mental pro­cesses and hab­itat dy­nam­ics are still chal­len­ging and only ex­ist in very lim­ited num­bers and spa­tial cov­er­age. In­nov­at­ive ro­botic tech­no­lo­gies have be­come key to study pro­cesses and changes in space and time. Within the re­port­ing period, we have sub­stan­tially im­proved the use of sensor sys­tems and un­der­wa­ter ro­botic plat­forms for deep-sea re­search, biogeo­chem­istry and mi­cro­bial eco­logy. These in­clude small sys­tems ma­nip­u­lated by ROVs, as well as fully in­teg­rated autonom­ous benthic crawler and free-fall­ing lander sys­tems. Dur­ing ex­ped­i­tions to ex­treme en­vir­on­ments such as hadal trenches and ice-covered po­lar re­gions, we have been able to com­bine a vari­ety of new tech­no­lo­gies to in­vest­ig­ate pre­vi­ously un­char­ac­ter­ized en­vir­on­ments and mi­cro­bial hab­it­ats.

In silico technologies

The re­mote­ness of the po­lar and deep-sea eco­sys­tems stud­ied by the DSET group also has con­sequences for the hand­ling and dis­sem­in­a­tion of the data, in­form­a­tion, and know­ledge we gen­er­ate. The rar­ity of these out­puts (re­l­at­ive to stud­ies of, e.g., the coasts and sur­face wa­ters) can re­duce their vis­ib­il­ity in the global data eco­sys­tem. To ad­dress this, mem­bers of the group are act­ive in in­ter­na­tional con­sor­tia de­vel­op­ing “in silico” tech­no­lo­gies to bet­ter ex­pose new know­ledge of the po­lar, deep-sea re­gions to both hu­man and ma­chine agents. In par­tic­u­lar, mem­bers of our group are lead­ers in the field of en­vir­on­mental Know­ledge Rep­res­ent­a­tion (KR). KR is a branch of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) which stud­ies the nature of mean­ing (i.e. se­mantics) and trans­lates hu­man know­ledge into ma­chine read­able forms, cap­tured in di­gital, web-ac­cess­ible ar­ti­facts known as “on­to­lo­gies”. Through lead­ing roles in the Earth Sci­ence In­form­a­tion Part­ners (ESIP) and the Open Bio­lo­gical and Bio­med­ical On­to­lo­gies Foundry, we trans­fer new know­ledge from our re­search themes into ref­er­ence di­gital tech­no­lo­gies the global data eco­sys­tem, while sim­ul­tan­eously study­ing the di­git­isa­tion of know­ledge it­self. Fur­ther and dur­ing the re­port­ing period, we have been in­creas­ingly act­ive in high-level global ef­forts to evolve the cur­rent ocean data sys­tem, es­pe­cially through activ­it­ies in IOC-UN­ESCO work­ing groups and through act­ive con­tri­bu­tions to the “Trans­par­ent and Ac­cess­ible Ocean” theme dur­ing the pre­par­at­ory pro­cess UN Dec­ade of Ocean Sci­ence for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment.

Contributors

Scientists: Frank Wenzhöfer, Pier Luigi Buttigieg, Felix Janssen.

Tech­nical Sup­port: Axel Nordhausen, Volker Asendorf, Fabian Schramm

 


Major achievements since 2017

  • Successful implementation of an in situ experiment to show benthic community response to changing phytodetritus input to the Arctic deepsea (Braeckman et al. 2018)
  • Revealing patterns of Arctic deep-sea communities controlled by independent abiotic environmental factors (ice-cover, food availability, water depth) (Hoffmann et al., 2018)
  • In situ studies of ice algal production and its importance under various ice conditions in the Arctic (Attard et al., 2018)
  • Gaining new knowledge on trench ecosystems and deep sea ecosystems in general using a multidisciplinary, concerted and quantitative approach in comparing carbon and nutrient fluxes as well as the structure, composition, and connection of hadal communities (RV SONNE cruise SO261 Atacama Trench & TAN1711 Kermadec Trench)
  • Development and application of an autonomous lander system for in situ sediment incubation (tracer injection) and core recovery from hadal depths
  • Operation of 2 autonomous benthic crawler systems for longterm-term (1-year missions) to investigate seasonal variations in benthic community respiration in Arctic deep-sea sediments since 3 years (PS108, MSM77, PS121)

 

  • Integration of semantic technologies with polar and deep-sea content into international data architectures including
  • IOC-UNESCO Ocean Data and Information System (ODIS)
  • The Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Semantic Web for Earth and Environmental Technology (SWEET)
  • Contributions to international working groups for Polar Semantics, in conjunction with collaborators including the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
  • Participation in the IOC-UNESCO IODE Inter-sessional working group to propose a strategy on ocean data and information stewardship for the UN Ocean Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (IWG-SODIS)
  • Initialisation of an EU COST action - CAPARDUS - to build an Arctic Best Practices system to harvest, preserve, and interlink knowledge in the region, including indigenous knowledge
  • Leading the technical components and strategy of the recently-launched IOC-UNESCO Ocean Best Practices System (Buttigieg et al., 2019)
  • Contributions to the data science infrastructure supporting the Group on Earth Observation Biodiversity Observation Networks (GEO BON) Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs)
  • Founding the Global Omics Observatory Network and building new data exchange and standardisation mechanisms to further molecular observation of life in the ocean
x
 

PRE­VI­OUS RE­SEARCH THEMES (un­til 2016)

 

Func­tional di­versity of mar­ine mi­cro­bi­o­mes

Sci­ent­ists: Antje Boetius (main PI), Christina Bienhold, Pier Luigi Buttigieg, Verena Carvalho, Eduard Fadeev, *Mar Fernandez-Mendez, Cedric Hahn, *Christiane Hassenrück, *Katy Hoffmann, Marianne Jacob, *Gerdhard Jessen, *Viola Krukenberg, Rafael Laso-Pérez, Massimiliano Molari, *Pierre Offre, Claudia Pala, *Alban Ramette, Josephine Rapp, Pamela Rossel, *Emil Ruff, Halina Tegetmeyer, *Tobias Vonnahme, Gunter Wegener; Labor­at­ory sup­port: Jakob Barz, Susanne Menger, Wiebke Stiens, Erika Weiz-Bersch; Tech­nical Sup­port: Volker Asendorf, Axel Nordhausen, Fabian Schramm

*former members of the group

De­scrib­ing mi­cro­bial di­versity and its drivers in com­plex nat­ural en­vir­on­ments rep­res­ents a corner­stone of mod­ern mi­cro­bial eco­logy. Sim­ilar ques­tions and ap­proaches drive this re­search in dif­fer­ent fields ran­ging from ex­treme deep-sea hab­it­ats to the hu­man mi­cro­bi­ome. The tech­no­lo­gical re­volu­tion of the field by fast new se­quen­cing tech­niques has also trans­formed con­cepts of mi­cro­bial di­versity and com­munity turnover at dif­fer­ent spa­tial and tem­poral scales. We de­velop data pipelines and ex­pert know­ledge sys­tems to provide a stat­ist­ical re­source to ana­lyze data­sets of in­creas­ing com­plex­ity and size. The aim is to re­solve the iden­tity and meta­bol­ism of taxa de­fin­ing the core mi­cro­bi­ome of mar­ine en­vir­on­ments. We in­vest­ig­ate mi­cro­bial life in po­lar en­vir­on­ments, deep-sea floor and trenches, an­oxic basins, mud vol­ca­noes, gas and oil seeps, hy­dro­thermal vents, food falls, man­ganese nod­ules, and coral reefs. These hab­it­ats are char­ac­ter­ized by dif­fer­ent bio­lo­gical, geo­lo­gical, and phys­ical con­di­tions, show­ing sub­stan­tial tem­poral and spa­tial vari­ations. Com­bin­ing ‘om­ics ap­proaches with ex­per­i­mental and field work en­ables the char­ac­ter­iz­a­tion of the eco­lo­gical roles of sev­eral un­cul­tiv­ated mi­cro­bial groups as well as the in­ter­play between mi­croor­gan­isms and their en­ergy sources.

Main recent achievements include:

  • Bienhold et al. (2016) identified core bacterial taxa in a global survey of marine seafloor environments
  • Ruff et al. (2015) identified core taxa and key members of functional groups in cold seep environments 
  • Rossel et al. (2016) performed high-resolution molecular profiles of dissolved organic matter (DOM) from sediment porewaters of the deep Eurasian basins in relation to environmental parameters
  • Hoffmann et al. (2017) identified patterns in deep-sea microbial communities in response to natural nutrient inputs
  • Fernández-Méndez et al. (2016) identified microbial nitrogen fixation potential in the nitrogen-limited Central Arctic Ocean 
  • Schöttner et al. (2013) identified the complex host-microbe diversity and co-evolutionary patterns in cold water coral reef sponges
  • Furthermore, we continuously test and re-evaluate the in-depth analyses of classical vs. NGS tools to explore microbial diversity in natural environments. Different generations of molecular techniques may be complementarily used to meaningfully describe microbial diversity and its drivers
  • Also, we permanently optimize our statistical toolbox (interactive guide and software package) to obtain more transparent and reproducible analytical procedures in our field
Network graph of 23 methane seeps based on occurrence of ANME
Network of occurrence of anaerobic methane-oxidizing euryarchaea (ANME) at 23 methane seeps. Gray lines connect ANME operational taxonomic units (OTUs), represented as colored circles, to the seeps where they occurred. The ten most abundant ANME OTUs accounted for 85% of all ANME 16S rRNA sequences retrieved in the global dataset and had a cosmopolitan distribution. The majority of the ANME diversity was rare and locally restricted. Ruff et al. (2015) PNAS 112:4019.

Geo­sphere-bio­sphere in­ter­ac­tions and an­aer­obic hy­dro­car­bon de­grad­a­tion in ex­treme en­vir­on­ments

Sci­ent­ists: Gunter Wegener (main PI), Antje Boetius, *Viola Krukenberg, Rafael Laso-Pérez, Massimiliano Molari, Pamela Rossel, *Emil Ruff, *Alban Ramette, *Tobias Vonnahme, Frank Wenzhöfer; Labor­at­ory sup­port: Jakob Barz, Mirja Meiners, Susanne Menger; Tech­nical sup­port: Fabian Schramm, Axel Nordhausen

* former members of the group

Ex­treme en­vir­on­ments are defined by one or more physi­co­chem­ical para­met­ers, such as e.g. ex­tremely high or low tem­per­at­ure, sa­lin­ity, pH, and en­ergy avail­ab­il­ity, at which life op­er­ates close to its known lim­its. Cold seeps and hot vents hab­it­ats rep­res­ent ex­treme en­vir­on­ment at which cold or hot flu­ids from the sub­sur­face are emit­ted to the sea­floor that are en­riched in re­duced com­pounds such as meth­ane, short- and long-chain hy­dro­car­bons, and hy­dro­gen. We aim at a func­tional un­der­stand­ing on the vari­ety the mi­croor­gan­isms that har­vest the en­ergy from these flu­ids and are the basis of com­pletely light-in­de­pend­ent eco­sys­tems in the deep oceans. There­fore we visit hot vents in the Gulf of Mex­ico (Campeche Hy­dro­car­bon field), the Gulf of Cali­for­nia (Guay­mas Basin), and the Arc­tic Ocean (Gakkel Ridge). Other types of ex­treme en­vir­on­ments stud­ied by in­ter­na­tional col­lab­or­a­tions are deep-sea trenches, mud vol­ca­noes, and CO2 vents. Cur­rently we study the dis­tri­bu­tion and gen­omes of mi­croor­gan­isms in the plumes of vents and in hy­dro­car­bon-rich sed­i­ments. There­fore, we use  a vari­ety of in situ tech­no­lo­gies such as benthic cham­bers, multi­s­ens­ory mod­ules, and cam­era plat­forms, op­er­ated from re­motely op­er­ated vehicles such as ROV Quest (MARUM, Bre­men), or as autonom­ous lander sys­tems. In the home labor­at­or­ies we cul­tiv­ate spe­cific mi­cro­bial groups thriv­ing on en­ergy-rich com­pon­ents in the geo­fluids, such as meth­ane, short-chain hy­dro­car­bons, and hy­dro­gen, and study their physiology in ex­per­i­ments by us­ing a vari­ety of mo­lecu­lar ap­proaches, in­clud­ing meta­ge­n­om­ics, meta­tran­scrip­tom­ics, and in situ hy­brid­iz­a­tion.

Main recent achievements include:

  • Wegener et al. (2015) identified nanowires and cytochromes that enable direct electron transfer from the ANME to their partner bacteria
  • Krukenberg et al. (2016) isolated HotSeep-1, the partner bacterium in thermophilic AOM and other hydrocarbon degrading consortia
  • Laso-Perez et al. (2016) identified the process of butane and propane activation via alkyl-CoM formation, analogous to the oxidation of methane, in some archaeal-bacterial consortia
  • Pop-Ristova et al. (2015) investigated the development of wood falls into chemosynthetic habitats
  • Boetius and Wenzhöfer (2013) quantified the efficiency of the benthic filter for methane at continental margins worldwide
  • Furthermore, we continuously study how in situ temperature variations shape the microbial diversity in the Guaymas Basin sediments
  • Also, we permanently develop novel stable isotope probing-based approaches to quantify microbial productivity, carbon fixation, and transformation under extreme environmental conditions

 

nanowires in AOM consortia
Species interaction in AOM aggregates of methane-oxidizing ANME-1 archaea (A) and partner bacteria (H). The intercellular space between the partners is filled with nanowire-like structures (arrows) that apparently enable direct electron transfer. Wegener et al. (2015) Nature 526: 587-590.

Global change ef­fects on mi­cro­bial com­munit­ies and func­tions

Sci­ent­ists: Christina Bienhold (main PI), Antje Boetius, *Ulrike Braeckmann, Pier Luigi Buttigieg, *Christiane Hassenrück, *Katy Hoffmann, Marianne Jacob, Felix Janssen, *Gerdhard Jessen, *Mar Fernández-Méndez, Massimiliano Molari, *Pierre Offre, Josephine Rapp, *Alban Ramette, *Tobias Vonnahme, Frank Wenzhöfer; Labor­at­ory sup­port: Martina Alisch, Jana Bäger, Jakob Barz, Rafael Stiens, Wiebke Stiens, Erika Weiz-Bersch; Tech­nical sup­port: Axel Nordhausen, Volker Asendorf

* former members of the group

Oceanic eco­sys­tems ex­per­i­ence vari­ous en­vir­on­mental pres­sures, many of which are a con­sequence of hu­man activ­it­ies, such as an­thro­po­genic car­bon di­ox­ide emis­sions, loss of sea ice by warm­ing, pol­lu­tion by hy­dro­car­bons, and de­clin­ing oxy­gen con­cen­tra­tions by eu­troph­ic­a­tion. Ef­fects of such activ­it­ies can already be re­cog­nized in re­mote po­lar and deep-sea en­vir­on­ments. Our work aims at study­ing and quan­ti­fy­ing the role of mi­croor­gan­isms in global change ef­fects and feed­back mech­an­isms to bet­ter un­der­stand fu­ture changes in mar­ine eco­sys­tems, which is one of the as­pects of the ERC AdvG project Abyss. Fur­ther­more, we con­trib­ute to the es­tab­lish­ment of baselines for eco­sys­tem status, which are largely miss­ing in re­mote ocean eco­sys­tems. In ad­di­tion to field­work and labor­at­ory stud­ies, we carry out long-term ob­ser­va­tions, es­pe­cially at the LTER site HAUSGARTEN in Fram Strait, which is one of the few biogeo­chem­ical deep-sea ob­ser­vat­or­ies on Earth.

Main recent achievements include:

  • Boetius et al. (2013) describe massive export of algal biomass from the sea ice to the seafloor as a result of sudden warming, causing fast reactions in the entire ecosystem from ocean productivity to export fluxes to the deep sea
  • Boetius et al. (2015) review current knowledge about bacterial diversity across sea ice, pelagic, and benthic ecosystems in the central Arctic Eurasian basin and present fundamental links between the dynamics in microbiomes and the rapidly changing cryosphere 
  • Jacob et al. (2013), Soltwedel et al. (2015) and Buttigieg and Ramette (2015) revealed that interannual variations in ocean surface temperatures and sea ice cover st the LTER site HAUSGARTEN (Fram Strait) and in the Central Arctic are reflected in benthic community structure and changes in the deposition of organic matter
  • Hassenrück et al. (2015, 2016) studied the effects of changing CO2 concentrations on benthic communities at natural CO2 vents, as analogues to ocean acidification, and showed that high CO2 levels cause diversity shifts, suggesting a coping mechanism for community resilience
  • Purser et al. (2016) revealed the association of deepsea octopods breeding with manganese crusts and nodules in the Pacific Ocean
  • Jessen et al. (2017) identified responses in microbial activity and community diversity to fluctuating hypoxia, and quantified the consequences for carbon burial 
  • Furthermore, we conduct continuous autonomous monitoring of oxygen dynamics at high spatial and temporal resolutions to better understand the effects of temporal hypoxia on ecosystems. We can show that short-term variations in oxygen fluxes have significant effects on benthic ecosystems, including differences in the preservation of organic matter, as well as the composition and diversity of bacterial communities.
  • Also, we study the long-term effects of large-scale disturbances and re-colonization by an experimental setup (DISCOL)  located in the South Pacific Ocean, simulating deep-sea mining on benthic communities. Initial observations suggest that mining can disturb seafloor communities for decades by disrupting the active surface layer.
Melosira arctica algae falls in Central Arctic
Observations during the record ice melt in the Central Arctic in 2012: Sea ice algal falls recovered from the seafloor on a multicorer (top left), with holothurians feeding on them (4100 m water depth; right), and the algae under the microscope (Melosira arctica; bottom left). Adapted from Boetius et al. (2013) Science 339: 1430-1432.

Method de­vel­op­ments: In situ tech­no­lo­gies for mi­cro­bial hab­itat stud­ies

Sci­ent­ists: Frank Wenzhöfer (main PI), Antje Boetius, *Daphne Donis, *Janine Felden, Ralf Hoffmann, Felix Janssen; Lab sup­port: Martina Alisch, Mirja Meiners, Rafael Stiens, Erika Weiz-Bersch; Tech­nical sup­port: Volker Asendorf, Michael Hofbauer, Karin Hohmann, Axel Nordhausen, Fabian Schramm, and the MPI work­shops

*former members of the group

In­vest­ig­a­tions of deep-sea eco­sys­tems and their or­gan­isms, as well as re­lated biogeo­chem­ical pro­cesses rely on the con­stant de­vel­op­ment of tech­no­logy that en­ables in situ ana­lyses and ob­ser­va­tions dir­ectly at the sea­floor. Many pro­cesses oc­cur at tem­poral and spa­tial scales that can­not be ef­fect­ively stud­ied after sample re­trieval due to de­pres­sur­iz­a­tion and warm­ing, or the mor­tal­ity of deep-sea an­im­als. Thus, as­sess­ments of bio­lo­gical, geo­lo­gical, phys­ical, and chem­ical pro­cesses in deep wa­ters, as well as long-term ob­ser­va­tions of deep-sea eco­sys­tems, re­quire the design and de­vel­op­ment of new tech­no­logy, es­pe­cially with re­gard to en­ergy sup­ply, sensor con­fig­ur­a­tion, and data com­mu­nic­a­tion. In­nov­at­ive ro­botic tech­no­lo­gies have be­come key to study ocean pro­cesses and changes in space and time. We have sub­stan­tially im­proved the use of chem­ical and bio­lo­gical sensor sys­tems and un­der­wa­ter plat­forms for deep-sea re­search, biogeo­chem­istry and mi­cro­bial eco­logy. We can equip di­verse un­der­wa­ter plat­forms (e.g. ROVs, AUVs, crawler, sub­mers­ibles, autonom­ous lander, towed and moored sys­tems) with sensors and cam­eras for cov­er­age at a wide range of tem­poral and spa­tial scales. The tech­no­lo­gical de­vel­op­ments en­able us to study the deep sea­floor of a vari­ety of ex­treme hab­it­ats, like the Cent­ral Arc­tic, deep trenches, CO2 seeps and vents in­clud­ing un­der-ice eco­sys­tems of po­lar re­gions. In the ice-covered Cent­ral Arc­tic we used newly de­veloped moored benthic lander sys­tems to quantify ex­port of or­ganic ma­ter­ial to the deep sea­floor, meas­ur­ing the total benthic com­munity res­pir­a­tion in situ by benthic cham­ber and mi­cro­pro­filer.

Fur­ther­more, we as­sist in long-term strategies to in­vest­ig­ate the sea­sonal vari­ation at the deep-sea floor. For ex­ample, a long-term microprofiler has been de­ployed at HAUSGARTEN in 2013 for one year. The sys­tem con­sists of an op­tical oxy­gen sensor ar­ray, which runs ver­tical pro­files across the sed­i­ment-wa­ter in­ter­face every week mov­ing a swinging arm ho­ri­zont­ally between each ver­tical pro­file dur­ing its 12-month de­ploy­ment.

Main recent achievements with technical aspects include:

  • Testing the sensitivity of eddy sensing systems for benthic flux measurements in the deep sea (Donis et al. 2015, 2016)
  • Miniaturization of payload systems (sensor and incubation systems) for biogeochemical process studies operated by ROVs (Pop-Ristova et al. 2015, 2017)
  • Operations of sea ice ROVs and tethered HROV in ice-covered environments - sea ice, vents, and seamounts in the Central Arctic (Katlein et al. 2015a, 2015b)
  • Design of hadal sampling, incubation, and measuring lander-systems (Wenzhöfer et al. 2016)
  • Development and deployments of a towed bathymetry camera system equipped with sonar and camera systems (OFOBS Ocean Floor Observation Bathymetry System), increasing surveyed regions from 3 m camera views to >30 m paths (Purser et al. 2016)
  • Furthermore, we continuously develop integrated payload systems (multi-sensor and -sampling systems) for ROV, AUV, towed instrument (OFOS) and crawler operations (e.g. EU-Eurofleets), and validate sensor systems for measurements at extreme conditions and for long-term applications (e.g. EU ITN-SenseNet).
  • Also, we continuously development under-ice deep-sea benthic lander system, construct instrument systems for biogeochemical studies in and directly under sea ice, design a combined chemical and optical observation system to explore deep-sea environments online, and optimize pipelines to annotate, archive and provide deep-sea photos and videos.
Technologies developed in the HGF MPG Research Group
Developing methods for the study of Arctic ecosystems and biogeochemical processes. Left: 3D profiler on a lander to be deployed under ice. Right: SenseNet field campaign Baltic Sea (Hel, Poland).
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