1. Arizona State University Dept. of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Effect of Autotrophic Metabolism on Dissolved Organic Carbon in Yellowstone National Park
Kathryn Mayer
Arizona State University
Dept. of Chemistry & Biochemistry

2. Why Carbon in Hot Springs?
Biodiversity
Geochemical variability
Extreme environment
Microbial metabolism
Organic Carbon trends difficult to characterize

3. Metabolism effects the organic carbon of a system
“CH2O” + O2
CO2 + H2O
Autotrophy – primary producers, makes organic C
Photosynthetic
Chemosynthetic
Heterotrophy –uses C from autotrophs

4. Project Heterotroph ‘06
Goal: Assess metabolism in 3 different hot spring/outflow
systems by measuring amount of dissolved organic carbon (DOC)
Hot Spring
Chemosynthetic Zone
Photosynthetic Zone
~73ºC
HS: Filtered Hot Spring Water + Zone Water DI: Deionized Water + Zone Water UC: Filtered Hot Spring Water

5. Hot Spring
Chemosynthetic Zone
Photosynthetic Zone
~73ºC

6. Conceptual Model Photosynthesis Chemosynthesis UC Control Heterotrophy
DI Control

7. Methods Use TOC-V Analyzer to measure amount of DOC NDIR Detector
“CH2O”
CO2
680ºC

9. Results…
Not what we expected!

10. We should have called this Project Autotroph NOT Heterotroph
Increases in DOC concentrations
Autotrophy
C production in Dark and Light bottles
Photosynthesis & Chemosynthesis
Genomic studies tell us there are autotrophs & heterotrophs present. This experiment does not show heterotrophy.

11. Future Work
Study organic compound compositional changes with Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (ESI-MS)
Experiment being planned for Summer ‘08
Thank you…
Dr. Hilairy Hartnett & Katie Alexander
Women & Philanthropy