Skip to main content
Fig. 3 | Microbiome

Fig. 3

From: Shifts among Eukaryota, Bacteria, and Archaea define the vertical organization of a lake sediment

Fig. 3

Overview of the sediment structure in Lake Stechlin. The cluster analysis separates three depth horizons: the redox-stratified zone (0–5 cm), which includes a thin layer of oxygen. A few fauna species exist in this zone, i.e., Nematoda, Gastrotricha, and microeukaryotes (e.g., Ciliophora), in addition to large numbers of highly active Bacteria. Below 5 cm, where 50% of the DNA is already decomposed, the system enters the transition zone. This zone is situated below the sulfate-methane transition. Below 14 cm, we find the depauperate horizon, which extents in the deeper sediment, in which Archaea dominate the community. In an extrapolation of the richness component of the community structure, the loss of richness would completely dominate (100%) the microbial community at 1-m depth (approx. 500 a). Following the decay curve of the DNA, 99.99999% of the DNA would be transformed at that depth. On the right side, the ten most structuring OTUs (from Additional file 4) are listed, which were significantly elevated in the corresponding horizon (only results with p<0.01 in the Tukey HSD post hoc test were included). The brackets ab and bc mark those OTUs that were elevated in the upper two or lower two zones, respectively. Only two OTUs were elevated in the transition zone. The gray box marks the single taxon that was significantly different in all three horizons. Taxon names are color coded according to their classification or phototrophy if applicable: phototrophic organism (green), Eukaryota (black), Bacteria (red), and Archaea (blue)

Back to article page