Quantification of co-occurring reaction rates in deep subseafloor sediments

Net rates of biogeochemical reactions in subseafloor sediments can be quantified from concentration profiles of dissolved reactants or products and physical properties of the sediment. To study net rates of microbial activities in deep sediments, we developed a robust approach that is well suited to use over a broad range of sediment depths. Our approach is based on a finite-difference solution to a continuity equation that considers molecular diffusion, sediment burial, fluid advection, and reaction under the assumption of steady state. Numerical procedures are adopted to identify the maximum number of depth intervals with statistically different reaction rates. The approach explicitly considers downcore variation in physical properties and sample spacing. Uncertainties in the rate estimates are quantified using a Monte Carlo technique. We tested our approach using synthetic concentration profiles generated from analytical solutions to the continuity equation. We then applied the approach to concentration profiles of dissolved sulfate, sulfide, methane, and manganese in the 420-m thick sediment column of eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean Drilling Program Site 1226. Our results indicate that (i) sulfate reduction and iron reduction occur at most sediment depths, (ii) net methane production occurs in discrete depth intervals and (iii) manganese reduction occurs near the seafloor and deep in the sediments. These results provide quantitative evidence that multiple respiration pathways co-exist in the same depth intervals of these deep subseafloor sediments.     

Seasonal succession of cyanobacterial protease inhibitors and Daphnia magna genotypes in a eutrophic Swedish lake

Lakes are well known for having a pattern of seasonal succession of phytoplankton and zooplankton. The succession of different taxa of phytoplankton results in a succession of zooplankton taxa, and within the genus Daphnia, into a succession of different genotypes (clones). One cause for this succession of Daphnia clones might be the production of digestive protease inhibitors by cyanobacteria, which usually bloom in summer. Here we report seasonal changes in the frequency and the abundance of Daphnia magna haplotypes in a eutrophic lake, which developed a chymotrypsin-inhibitor-producing cyanobacterial bloom in May. These seasonal changes were not related to changes of biotic and abiotic lake parameters. However, a very high content of chymotrypsin inhibitors was observed in May (but not in other months). This was assumed to have exerted a strong punctual selection pressure on the Daphnia population and on the direct targets of the protease inhibitors, i.e. the digestive chymotrypsins of Daphnia. Actually, D. magna from before and during the cyanobacterial bloom showed a different protease pattern on activity stained SDS-PAGE in comparison to clones from the month after the bloom. However, no difference in tolerance, measured as IC₅₀ values, to inhibition by natural lake seston from May was found between the clones from before and after the bloom. Thus, the hypothesis that a seasonal adaptation of D. magna subpopulations from either April/May or June might have occurred could not be proven. This suggests that the Daphnia population investigated here is locally adapted to cyanobacterial protease inhibitors.