Phylogenetic analysis of bacterial community in deep-sea sediment from the western Pacific "warm pool"

A depth profile of bacterial community structure in one deep-sea sediment core of the western Pacific warm pool (WP) was investigated and compared with that in a sediment sample from the eastern Pacific (EP) by phylogenetic analysis of 16S rDNA fragments. Five bacterial 16S rDNA clone libraries were constructed, and 133 clones with different restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns were sequenced. A phylogenetic analysis of these sequences revealed that the bacterial diversity in a sample from the WP was more abundant than that in the EP sample. The bacterial population in the sediment core of WP was composed of eight major lineages of the domain bacteria. Among them the γ-Proteobacteria was the predominant and most diverse group in each section of WP sediment core, followed by the α-Proteobacteria. The genus Colwellia belonging to γ-Proteobacteria was predominant in this sample. The shift of bacterial communities among different sections of the WP sediment core was δ-, e-Proteobacteria, and Cytopahga-Flexibacteria-Bacteroides (CFB) group. The ratios between them in the bacterial communities all showed inversely proportional to the depth of sediment. The sequences related to sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB) were detected in every section. The bacterial community structure in this sediment core might be related to the environmental characteristics of the surface seawater of the western Pacific WP.