Multispecies Populations of Methanotrophic <i>Methyloprofundus</i> and Cultivation of a Likely Dominant Species from the Iheya North Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Field
Hisako Hirayama, Yoshihiro Takaki, Mariko Abe, Hiroyuki Imachi, Tetsuro Ikuta, Junichi Miyazaki, Eiji Tasumi, Katsuyuki Uematsu, Akihiro Tame, Miwako Tsuda, Keiko Tanaka, Yohei Matsui, Hiromi Kayama Watanabe, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, Ken Takai
Abstract
The Iheya North deep-sea hydrothermal field in the mid-Okinawa Trough is characterized by abundant methane derived from organic-rich sediments and diverse chemosynthetic animal species, including those harboring methanotrophic bacterial symbionts, such as bathymodiolin mussels Bathymodiolus japonicus and “ Bathymodiolus ” platifrons and a galatheoid crab, Shinkaia crosnieri . Symbiotic methanotrophs have attracted significant attention, and yet free-living methanotrophs in this environment have not been studied in detail.