深海热液区微生物群落与环境适应性机理

Microbiome and environmental adaption mechanisms in deep-sea hydrothermal vents

深海热液区是最典型的深海高温环境,其剧烈变化的理化环境成为热液微生物的主要能量来源,支持着极大的生物量和生产力,热液区是微生物物种多样性最丰富的环境.生活在热液区周围的微生物同时面临深海高静水压,以及热液喷口周围温度、pH、盐度、氧化还原度等多种环境因子的剧烈波动.由于热液区的理化特性与早期地球环境有一定相似性,因此被认为可能是生命起源的摇篮.了解深海热液高温高压环境中生命的环境适应、生命边界和演化过程,可以帮助人们了解类早期生命形态,为探究生命起源、生命与地球协同演化以及探索域外生命提供重要的科学认知和理论基础.在过去近40年,已有大量针对深海热液微生物的研究报道和综述发表.本文基于深海原位检测和实验室模拟技术发展带来的新认知,由宏观到微观,从热液生态系统形成与群落演替、多样性成因、多因子环境适应等三个方面系统综述了近年来围绕深海热液微生物的前沿研究,并讨论了新技术发展带来的时间尺度在上述研究中的影响和意义.

The deep-sea hydrothermal vents are typical deep-sea high-temperature environments.The sharp physical and chemical gradients around the hydrothermal vents serve as energy sources for microorganisms living there,and support great biomass and productivity.As a result,deep-sea hydrothermal vents possess the most abundant microbial diversity on the Earth.Microorganisms living around the hydrothermal vents are faced with multiple environmental stresses,such as deep-sea high hydrostatic pressure,as well as fluctuations of temperature,pH,salinity,redox stage and so on.Because their physical and chemical characteristics are similar to those of early earth,hydrothermal vents are considered to be a potential candidate for the origin of life.Understanding the environmental adaptation,life boundary and evolution process of microorganisms living under the extreme conditions of deep-sea hydrothermal vents can help us realize how early life survive on the ancient Earth,which provides scientific cognition and theoretical foundation for exploring origin of life,revealing co-evolution of life and earth,and even investigating extraterritorial life.In the past four decades,studies on the deep-sea hydrothermal vents have produced a large number of research articles and reviews.Compared with previous reviews,this review is based on the new cognition due to developing techniques in deep-sea in-situ exploration and laboratory simulations.We systematically generalized recent cutting-edge researches,from macro to micro scales,in three aspects:formation and succession of the ecosystem in hydrothermal vent,formation of microbiological diversity,and environmental adaptation of microorganisms to the multiple extreme conditions.Besides focusing on the spatial scale,we also called on researchers to pay attention to the significance and impacts of time scales in research areas as mentioned above,with support from the new techniques.