New Jebsen-seminar: Dr. Gunter Wegener

Welcome to our second Jebsen Seminar - a new seminar series organized by the K.G. Jebsen Centre for Deep Sea Research.

The next seminar takes place Thursday 11th May 12:15-1pm in the 4th floor CGB Seminar Room (4C12a), Realfagbygget:

Life based on Hades’ heat: How vent and water column microorganisms thrive on geomolecules

Dr. Gunter Wegener

Senior Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen
MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, Bremen

The heat of the inner earth provides the energy to drive the long-term element cycles. This heat also mobilizes energy-rich compounds such as methane, short-chain hydrocarbons and hydrogen from the subsurface. At hydrothermal vents these compounds are emitted and fuel heat-adapted and autotrophic microorganisms in the otherwise cold and bleak deep ocean. I will present my research on the functioning of the anaerobic oxidation of methane and short chain hydrocarbons, which is performed by thermophilic microbial consortia. In these consortia, archaea master the holy grail of anaerobic hydrocarbon activation by reversing methanogenesis for alkyl-CoM formation. The complete methanogenesis pathway is reversed and in non-methane substrates combined with other dissimilatory pathways. Reverse methanogenesis is apparently incompatible with dissimilatory sulfate reduction, hence the archaea have to shuttle the reducing equivalents to sulfate-reducing partner bacteria. This is directly enabled by nanowire-like structures. Deep-sea vents also emit energy-rich compounds to the water column, where they provide the basis for chemosynthetic microbial communities. I will present how hydrothermal vent plumes in the Arctic foster specific microbial groups.