NOAA ‘Omics Seminar Series (March 24, 2022): An exploration of hydrothermal vent plume communities

This seminar is part of the NOAA 'Omics Seminar Series, which takes place on the third Wednesday of every month at 12pm ET / 9am PT. 'Omics describes a suite of cutting-edge tools used to analyze DNA, RNA, proteins, or metabolites.
Date: March 24, 2022
Title: Deep, dark, and diverse - an exploration of hydrothermal vent plume community composition and function
Presenter: Dr. Matthew Harke
Abstract: Deep under the surface of the ocean, beyond the reach of the sun, hydrothermal activity supports a vast diversity of organisms promoted by chemosynthetic primary production. These biological hot spots are still sparsely sampled, and our current knowledge is limited to snapshots in space in time. As such, it is still difficult to evaluate the role of isolation and dispersal in shaping the biogeography of deep-sea hydrothermal vents, particularly when considering microbial organisms. In July of 2021, as part of the OceanX Young Explorers Program, we set out to explore the Moytirra vent field along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge north of the Azores, with a goal of characterizing the diversity of organisms inhabiting vent plumes and how community composition and function changes with distance from the vent site. A transect was conducted within a plume collecting samples at 200m intervals across 2.4 km following the plume turbidity gradient. Samples were sequenced using both metabarcoding and metatranscriptome to assess the diversity and function of organisms within the plume and how it relates to biogeochemistry and distance from vent origin.