page_title: Hydrothermal vent microbial communities
section_title: Sulfur Reduction
hierarchical_section_title: Hydrothermal vent microbial communities / Microbial Biogeochemistry / Sulfur Cycle / Sulfur Reduction
caption_attribution_description: English: A hand drawn image of the nitrogen cycle pertaining to hydrothermal vent microbial communities; includes names of processes and phyla/genera
context_page_description: The hydrothermal vent microbial community includes all unicellular organisms that live and reproduce in a chemically distinct area around hydrothermal vents. These include organisms in the microbial mat, free floating cells, or bacteria in an endosymbiotic relationship with animals. Chemolithoautotrophic bacteria derive nutrients and energy from the geological activity at Hydrothermal vents to fix carbon into organic forms. Viruses are also a part of the hydrothermal vent microbial community and their influence on the microbial ecology in these ecosystems is a burgeoning field of research.
  Hydrothermal vents are located where the tectonic plates are moving apart and spreading. This allows water from the ocean to enter into the crust of the earth where it is heated by the magma. The increasing pressure and temperature forces the water back out of these openings, on the way out, the water accumulates dissolved minerals and chemicals from the rocks that it encounters. There are generally three kinds of vents that occur and are all characterized by its temperature and chemical composition. Diffuse vents release clear water typically up to 30 °C.
context_section_description: Sulfur reduction uses sulfate as an electron acceptor for the assimilation of sulfur. Microbes that perform sulfate reduction typically use hydrogen, methane or organic matter as an electron donor. Anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) often use sulfate as electron acceptor. This method is favoured by organisms living in highly anoxic areas of the hydrothermal vent, thus are one of the predominate processes that occur within the sediments. Species that reduce sulfate have been identified in Archaea and members of Deltaproteobacteria such as Desulfovibrio, Desulfobulbus, Desulfobacteria, and Desulfuromonas at hydrothermal vents.
caption: Processes of the nitrogen cycle relevant to microbial communities at hydrothermal vents, including names of pyla/genera. Adapted from Gruber et al. (2008)
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