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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, October 2001, p. 4880-4890, Vol. 67, No. 10
0099-2240/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/AEM.67.10.4880-4890.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Axial Differences in Community Structure of Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota in the Highly Compartmentalized Gut of the Soil-Feeding Termite Cubitermes orthognathus

Michael W. Friedrich,1,* Dirk Schmitt-Wagner,2 Tillmann Lueders,1 and Andreas Brune2

Max-Planck-Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, D-35043 Marburg/Lahn,1 and Fachbereich Biologie, Universität Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz,2 Germany

Received 7 March 2001/Accepted 12 June 2001

Methanogenesis represents an important electron sink reaction in the hindgut of soil-feeding termites. This is the first comprehensive analysis of the archaeal community structure within the highly compartmentalized intestinal tract of a humivorous insect, combining clonal analysis and terminal restriction fragment (T-RF) length polymorphism (T-RFLP) fingerprinting of the archaeal communities in the different gut compartments of Cubitermes orthognathus. We found that the morphological and physicochemical heterogeneity of the gut is reflected in a large phylogenetic diversity and pronounced axial differences in the composition of the archaeal gut microbiota, notably among those clones or ribotypes that could be assigned to methanogenic taxa. Comparative analysis of the relative frequencies of different archaeal lineages among the small-subunit rRNA gene (SSU rDNA) clones and their corresponding T-RF indicated that the archaeal community in the anterior, extremely alkaline hindgut compartment (P1) consists mainly of members of the Methanosarcinaceae, whereas Methanobacteriaceae and Methanomicrobiales predominate in the subsequent, more posterior compartments (P3/4a and P4b). The relative abundance of Thermoplasmales increased towards the rectum (P5). SSU rDNA sequences representing Crenarchaeota, which have not yet been reported to occur in the intestinal tracts of arthropods, were detected in all gut sections. We discuss how the spatial distribution of methanogenic populations may be linked to axial heterogeneity in the physicochemical gut conditions and to functional adaptations to their respective ecological niches.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Max-Planck-Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch-Strabeta e, D-35043 Marburg/Lahn, Germany. Phone: 49-6421-178830. Fax: 49-6421-178809. E-mail: friedric{at}mailer.uni-marburg.de.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, October 2001, p. 4880-4890, Vol. 67, No. 10
0099-2240/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/AEM.67.10.4880-4890.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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