Diversity of Archaea in the Sediments from the Source Area of Kuroshio

To study the archaeal diversity of deep-sea sediments from the Source Area of Kuroshio in Western Pacific, the MD06-3047 sediment core collected by the IMAGES XIV cruise was used to built a genetic base through 16S rDNAanalysis.260 archaeal 16S rDNA clones were obtained and after examination, a total of 56 OTUs were yielded. Phylogenetic results show that the sediments from Benham Rise contain a variety of thearchaea and nine groups have been identified within 1 meter of sediments. Archaea belongs to Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota, with Crenarchaeota accounting for 91.5%of total archaeal clones. Crenarchaeota consists of four groups (MGI, MBG-B, MCG and UCII-b), and is dominated by MGI (40.8% of total archaeal clones). And Euryarchaeota containsfive archaealphylotypes, which all take up tiny percentage (0.4%~5.4%) of total archaeal clones.The results have important implications for understanding of archaeal community in deep-sea sediments from the source area of Kuroshio in Western Pacific and provide a scientific basis for the future study on the relationship between archaea and environment.