The Pappy Lane wreck in Pamlico Sound, North Carolina. Credit: John McCord, Coastal Studies Institute
Posted on 08/22/2020 3:35:05 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Shipwrecks act as artificial reefs and provide a substrate and nutrients for a great diversity of microorganisms, which can contribute to either the deterioration or preservation of the ship. Precisely how diverse such communities are, and how they are organized, is still unknown. Here, researchers from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, identify the bacteria associated with a shipwreck from the 1960s. They find a highly diverse community on the wreck, consisting of at least 4,800 OTUs (Operational Taxonomic Units, roughly corresponding to species) from 28 bacterial phyla, including nitrogen-, carbon-, sulfur-, and iron-cycling species. Microbial community composition strongly differed between locations within the site, suggesting niche partitioning, in the same way that fungal species specialize in particular microhabitats within a forest, based on the local abiotic and biotic environment. The results are published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Microbiology.
The 50-m-long wreck, called the Pappy Lane, represents the remains of the steel-hulled USS LCS(L)(3)-123, built in 1944 as a WWII warship and abandoned after running aground in the 1960s in the shallows of the Pamlico Sound lagoon, North Carolina, after a second career a barge...
Present across the shipwreck and abundant where corrosion was observed, were iron-oxidizing ("iron-eating") Proteobacteria, which may contribute to biocorrosion. These included a new strain of the marine iron-oxidizing Zetaproteobacteria, with the apt name Mariprofundus ferrooxydans O1. Genomic analysis showed that the metabolic capacities of this strain include iron oxidation, carbon fixation in both oxygen-rich and -poor environments, and nitrogen fixation, indicating that it contributes to the cycling of metals and nutrients in the shipwreck environment.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
The Pappy Lane wreck in Pamlico Sound, North Carolina. Credit: John McCord, Coastal Studies Institute
Oxygen causes rot. Tell a lib to stop breathing.
Nothing fascinates/horrifies me more than sunken wreckage. I would love-hate to dive to one. Freaky.
I'd settle for a remote controlled robot. :^)
Same here.
I draw the line on being somewhere that I can drown and do nothing about it. :^)
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