Calling for Paper for Research Topic: Recent Insights into the Essential Roles of Archaea in the Marine Carbon Cycle

About this Research Topic:

Archaea represent a significant fraction of microbial diversity on Earth and are ubiquitous in marine water columns and sedimentary environments. Availability of new marine isolates and Metagenomes Assembled Genomes (MAGs) suggested that archaea may have a wider phylogenetic and metabolic diversity than previously expected. Culture-dependent and -independent techniques have, moreover, revealed that archaea play essential roles in the marine carbon cycle. Planktonic and sedimentary archaea fix carbon through autotrophic or heterotrophic pathways. The production of methane and utilization of simple (e.g. methane) and complex organic substrates (e.g., larger hydrocarbons, lignin) as energy sources by archaeal organisms implies a key role of archaea in the global carbon cycle and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, numerous archaeal groups that couple carbon cycling with other elemental cycling, such as nitrogen, sulfur, phosphate and heavy metals, in some cases using unique metabolisms. This wide range of metabolisms explains the evolutionary success and ecological importance of archaea across a wide variety of marine habitats, from estuaries to the open ocean, deep-sea sediments, hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, hadal trenches, subseafloor sediments and basaltic oceanic crust.  

The proposed Research Topic aims will feature recent progress in research on the diversity, physiology, ecology, metabolism and activity of archaea across different marine ecosystems, with a special focus on the role of archaea in the carbon cycle. We welcome a wide range of microbiological, geochemical, and ecological contributions that improve understanding of the role of archaea in mediating marine biogeochemical processes and carbon cycling.

• Characterization of the physiology and metabolism of uncultivated archaea by omics

• Anabolism and catabolism of organic carbon compounds by archaeal organisms

• Biogeochemical control of archaeal distribution, physiology and activity

• Methanogenesis, methanogens, methane oxidation and methanotrophs

• Cultivation of archaea from marine habitats