Shift in Cyanobacteria Community Diversity in Hot Springs of India

Two ecologically distinct tropical sulfur-rich alkaline hot springs, Taptapani at 48°C harboring mesophiles and Atri at 58°C comprising thermophiles situated in the Eastern Ghats foothills of India, differ in their geochemical conditions, and provide an interesting platform to unravel the eco-physiological reasons behind the differential cyanobacterial diversity. The predominance of mesophilic Arthronema (83.81%) in Taptapani and shifting predominance of thermophilic Leptolyngbya (96.25%) in Atri as discovered through 16S rRNA gene Illumina sequencing of their metagenomics DNA as a function of temperature are the intriguing features of the present study. Differential presence of the cyanobacterial community at the phylum level in these two hot springs was found to be correlated with the unequal coexistence of Chloroflexi, Taptapani the non-cyanobacteria members and the possible influence of physiochemical parameters including temperature. Variation in cyanobacterial diversity and composition of these hot springs as revealed through sequence analysis were also evinced by respective differences in richness, evenness, and Shannon diversity indices.     

Microbiology and geochemistry of great boiling and mud hot springs in the United States Great Basin

A coordinated study of water chemistry, sediment mineralogy, and sediment microbial community was conducted on four >73°C springs in the northwestern Great Basin. Despite generally similar chemistry and mineralogy, springs with short residence time (~5–20 min) were rich in reduced chemistry, whereas springs with long residence time (>1 day) accumulated oxygen and oxidized nitrogen species. The presence of oxygen suggested that aerobic metabolisms prevail in the water and surface sediment. However, Gibbs free energy calculations using empirical chemistry data suggested that several inorganic electron donors were similarly favorable. Analysis of 298 bacterial 16S rDNAs identified 36 species-level phylotypes, 14 of which failed to affiliate with cultivated phyla. Highly represented phylotypes included Thermus, Thermotoga, a member of candidate phylum OP1, and two deeply branching Chloroflexi. The 276 archaeal 16S rDNAs represented 28 phylotypes, most of which were Crenarchaeota unrelated to the Thermoprotei. The most abundant archaeal phylotype was closely related to “Candidatus Nitrosocaldus yellowstonii”, suggesting a role for ammonia oxidation in primary production; however, few other phylotypes could be linked with energy calculations because phylotypes were either related to chemoorganotrophs or were unrelated to known organisms. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Knowledge and use of fungi by a mycophilic society of the Venezuelan Amazon

This paper reports on the knowledge and useful applications of various fungi by the Hotï, a recently contacted Native American society inhabiting the Sierra Maigualida region of the Venezuelan Amazon. At least 31 folk taxa of fungi are esteemed as sources of nutrition, powerful media for hunting magic, protective charms against black magic, human medicinal agents, or body adornments. Even though the results presented here probably do not exhaust the total number of species known and used by them, they nevertheless suggest that the Hotï constitute one of the rare mycophilic societies in the Venezuelan Amazon. Further research is needed in order to obtain a more complete picture of the complexity of humanfungi relationships in this society.     

Molecular Determination of Infection Source of a Sporadic Legionella Pneumonia Case Associated with a Hot Spring Bath

To determine the infection source of a sporadic Legionella pneumonia case associated with a hot spring bath, we used five molecular methods, including repetitive element polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR), arbitrarily primed PCR (AP-PCR), ribotyping, restriction endonuclease analysis (REA), and macrorestriction endonuclease analysis (MREA) by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. L. pneumophila serogroup (SG) 3 strain EY 3702, isolated from an intratracheal specimen of a 71-year-old Japanese female who developed pneumonia after nearly drowning in a hot spring spa bath, produced rep-PCR and AP-PCR fingerprints identical to those of L. pneumophila SG 3 strains EY 3768 and EY 3769 isolated from the bath water. Four epidemiologically unrelated L. pneumophila SG 3 strains showed different rep-PCR or AP-PCR fingerprints from those of the three EY strains (EY 3702, 3768, and 3769). The three EY strains were also genotypically indistinguishable by ribotyping with EcoRI and PstI, by REA with EcoBI or HindIII, and by MREA with NotI. Based on these results, we identified the bath water of the hot spring spa as the source of infection of this patient, even though the viable number of the organisms in the bath water was low (3 CFU/100 ml) when determined 27 days after her nearly drowning.