Abstract:

The archaeal diversity of two hot springs with different temperature in Chengde area of China was investigated using 16S rDNA clone library. The results showed that the archaea in the Shanwanzi hot spring A12 (74.5 ℃) belonged to two phyla: Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota, but the archaea in the Qijia hot spring A14 (61.4 ℃) belonged to Crenarchaeota only. Based on sequence similarity, a total of 3 phylotypes or operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were obtained from A12 sample, while the archaeal sequences in A14 sample could be classified into 10 phylotypes. The biodiversity difference between the two samples revealed that the temperature might be an important factor to affect the level of archaeal diversity in hot springs. The major physiological function of archaea in sample A12 was methanogenesis through anaerobic acetate fermentation. On the contrary, the most archaea in sample A14 were closely related to ammoniaoxidizing archaea, indicating that their dominant physiological function was aerobic ammonia oxidation.

Key words: hot spring, 16S rDNA, clone library, archaea, biodiversity；Chengde area