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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, December 2008, p. 7410-7421, Vol. 74, No. 23
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01710-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Comparative Characterization of the Microbial Diversities of an Artificial Microbialite Model and a Natural Stromatolite {triangledown} ,{dagger}

Stephanie A. Havemann and Jamie S. Foster*

Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida, Space Life Sciences Laboratory, Kennedy Space Center, Florida 32899

Received 24 July 2008/ Accepted 25 September 2008

Microbialites are organosedimentary structures that result from the trapping, binding, and lithification of sediments by microbial mat communities. In this study we developed a model artificial microbialite system derived from natural stromatolites, a type of microbialite, collected from Exuma Sound, Bahamas. We demonstrated that the morphology of the artificial microbialite was consistent with that of the natural system in that there was a multilayer community with a pronounced biofilm on the surface, a concentrated layer of filamentous cyanobacteria in the top 5 mm, and a lithified layer of fused oolitic sand grains in the subsurface. The fused grain layer was comprised predominantly of the calcium carbonate polymorph aragonite, which corresponded to the composition of the Bahamian stromatolites. The microbial diversity of the artificial microbialites and that of natural stromatolites were also compared using automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The ARISA profiling indicated that the Shannon indices of the two communities were comparable and that the overall diversity was not significantly lower in the artificial microbialite model. Bacterial clone libraries generated from each of the three artificial microbialite layers and natural stromatolites indicated that the cyanobacterial and crust layers most closely resembled the ecotypes detected in the natural stromatolites and were dominated by Proteobacteria and Cyanobacteria. We propose that such model artificial microbialites can serve as experimental analogues for natural stromatolites.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida, Space Life Sciences Laboratory, Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899. Phone: (321) 861-2900. Fax: (321) 861-2925. E-mail: jfoster{at}ufl.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 3 October 2008.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, December 2008, p. 7410-7421, Vol. 74, No. 23
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01710-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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