Hydrogeological and geological partitioning of iron and sulfur cycling bacterial consortia in subsurface coal-based mine waters

Soares, André, Rassner, Sara Maria Edwards, Edwards, Arwyn, Farr, Gareth, Blackwell, Nia, Sass, Henrik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8740-4224, Persiani, Guglielmo, Schofield, David and Mitchell, Andrew C 2025. Hydrogeological and geological partitioning of iron and sulfur cycling bacterial consortia in subsurface coal-based mine waters. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 101 (5) , fiaf039. 10.1093/femsec/fiaf039

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Abstract

Pyrite oxidation drives iron and sulfur availability across Earth’s subsurface and is partly microbially mediated. Subsurface microbial communities accelerate this process at circumneutral pH directly by weathering pyritic surfaces and indirectly by causing changes to the surrounding microenvironment, thereby further accelerating pyrite weathering. However, our understanding of community structure dynamics and associated biogeochemistry in Fe- and S-rich lithologies, e.g. pyritic coal, is limited. Here, we present the first comprehensive regional and seasonal genus-level survey of bacterial groundwater communities in a pyritic coal-based aquifer in the South Wales Coalfield (SWC), using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Seasonal changes in community structure were limited, suggesting limited influence of surface processes on subsurface communities. Instead, hydrogeologically distinct mine water blocks (MWB) and coal rank largely explained bacterial community structure variation across sites. Fe(II)-oxidizing Betaproteobacteriales genera Gallionella and Sideroxydans dominated the bacterial communities across nine sites and seven MWBs, while three sites within a single MWB, were dominated by S-oxidizing Epsilonbacteraeota genera Sulfuricurvum and Sulfurovum. The cooccurrence of pairs of Fe(II)- and S-oxidizing bacterial genera suggests functional redundancy, which coupled with genus-specific morphologies and life strategies, indicates the importance of distinct environmental and ecological niches within the SWC groundwater at seasonal and regional scales.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Earth and Environmental Sciences
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Start Date: 2025-04-10
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	0168-6496
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	25 April 2025
Date of Acceptance:	8 April 2025
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2025 09:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/177911

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