Fig. 6

Proposed microbial-dominated ecological functions in deep-sea ferromanganese nodule sediment fields. The width of lines represents the total relative abundance of dominant and other MAGs performing each function. The box model was applied to the ecosystem, simplifying it to a reservoir for chemical materials. The materials marked as sources entered the reservoir, and the materials marked as sinks left the reservoir. In the figure, the oxidation that releases electrons may represent a way to obtain energy from chemoautotrophy