Translationally active cells in the Guaymas Basin deep biosphere
The marine deep biosphere spans the entire global ocean and offers a wide range of environmental conditions for microbes to flourish. However, the identities and metabolic functions of these microbial populations are not well understood. In this study, we investigate translationally active microbial communities and elucidate their metabolic activity in hydrothermally impacted marine sediments. By combining activity measurements, amplicon sequencing, and metagenomics data, we improved our understanding of carbon transformations and microbial ecology of the deep biosphere. Our findings emphasize the ecological significance of heterotrophic microbes and the carbon-degrading metabolisms they use to survive in extreme conditions. This work advances the applications of next-generation physiology techniques to document single-cell metabolic activity in a high-throughput manner in the marine deep biosphere.