organism: marine sediment metagenome
description: Large sulfur-oxidizing bacteria in the family Beggiatoaceae are important players in the global sulfur cycle. This group contains members of the well-known genera Beggiatoa, Thioploca and Thiomargarita, but also recently identified and relatively unknown candidate taxa including  Candidatus Thiopilula spp.  and  Ca. Thiophysa spp.  We discovered a population of  Ca. Thiopilula spp.  colonizing cold seeps near Barbados at ~4.7 km water depth. The Barbados population consists of spherical cells that are morphologically similar to Thiomargarita spp., with elemental sulfur inclusions and a central vacuole, but have much smaller cell diameters (5 to 40 mM). We used microscopy and rRNA methods to describe the Barbados mat community, and applied metatranscriptomics to explore gene expression by the Barbados  Ca. Thiopilula  and associated microbial community when exposed to anoxic, sulfidic conditions.
attributes.tag: collection_date
attributes.value: 2012-06
attributes.tag: depth
attributes.value: Sediment-water interface
attributes.tag: elev
attributes.value: 4743 m below sea level
attributes.tag: env_biome
attributes.value: marine benthic biome
attributes.tag: env_feature
attributes.value: marine benthic feature
attributes.tag: env_material
attributes.value: marine sediment
attributes.tag: geo_loc_name
attributes.value: Barbados
attributes.tag: lat_lon
attributes.value: 13.264882 N 59.42534 W
attributes.tag: BioSampleModel
attributes.value: MIMS.me
attributes.tag: BioSampleModel
attributes.value: MIGS/MIMS/MIMARKS.sediment