Endospore abundance and d:l-amino acid modeling of bacterial turnover in holocene marine sediment (Aarhus Bay)

In order to study bacterial activity, and turnover times of bacterial necromass and biomass in marine sediment, two stations from the Aarhus Bay, Denmark were analyzed. Sediment cores were up to 11 m deep and covered a timescale from the present to ∼11,000 years ago. Sediment was analyzed for total hydrolysable amino acids (THAA), total hydrolysable amino sugars, the bacterial endospore marker dipicolinic acid (DPA), and amino acid enantiomers (l- and d-form) of aspartic acid. Turnover times of bacterial necromass and vegetative cells, as well as carbon oxidation rates were estimated by use of the d:l-amino acid racemization model. Diagenetic indicators were applied to evaluate the diagenetic state of the sedimentary organic matter. The contribution of amino acids to total organic carbon, and the ratio between the amino acids aspartic acid and glutamic acid, and their respective non protein degradation products, β-alanine and γ-amino butyric acid, all indicated increasing degradation state of the organic matter with sediment depth and age. Quantification of DPA showed that endospores were abundant, and increased with depth relative to vegetative cells. Most of the amino acids (97%) could be ascribed to microbial necromass, i.e. the remains of dead bacterial cells. Model estimates showed that the turnover times of microbial necromass were in the range of 0.5–1 × 105 years, while turnover times of vegetative cells were in the range of tens to hundreds of years. The turnover time of the TOC pool increased with depth in the sediment, indicating that the TOC pool became progressively more refractory and unavailable to microorganisms with depth and age of the organic matter.