Small lakes and ponds are often of critical ecological and economic importance. At the same time, they are increasingly impacted by anthropogenic activities, leading to eutrophic or hypertrophic conditions. These are typically accompanied by increasing primary production, nutrient, and detritus accumulation. Owners and stakeholders are often challenged to decide on feasible and appropriate measures for lake restoration. Addres...

Even though sediment macrofauna are widespread in the global seafloor, the influence of these fauna on microbial communities that drive sediment biogeochemical cycles remains poorly understood. According to recent field investigations, macrofaunal activities control bacterial and archaeal community structure in surface sediments, but the inferred mechanisms have not been experimentally verified. Here we use laboratory microcos...

We investigated the impact of kelp deposition on the geochemistry and microbial community composition of beach sands on the island of Helgoland (North Sea). The composition of the microbial community at a beach with regular kelp deposition appeared shaped by this regular input of organic material, as indicated by significantly higher proportions of aerobic degraders, fermenters, and sulfur cycling microorganisms. Rapid degrada...

Summary Metal‐sulfides are wide‐spread in marine benthic habitats. At deep‐sea hydrothermal vents, they occur as massive sulfide chimneys formed by mineral precipitation upon mixing of reduced vent fluids with cold oxygenated sea water. Although microorganisms inhabiting actively venting chimneys and utilizing compounds supplied by the venting fluids are well studied, only little is known about microorganisms inhabiting inacti...

Summary Deep‐sea hydrothermal vents are highly dynamic habitats characterized by steep temperature and chemical gradients. The oxidation of reduced compounds dissolved in the venting fluids fuels primary production providing the basis for extensive life. Until recently studies of microbial vent communities have focused primarily on chemolithoautotrophic organisms. In our study, we targeted the change of microbial community com...

Summary Marine denitrification constitutes an important part of the global nitrogen cycle and the diversity, abundance and process rates of denitrifying microorganisms have been the focus of many studies. Still, there is little insight in the ecophysiology of marine denitrifying communities. In this study, a heterotrophic denitrifying community from sediments of a marine intertidal flat active in nitrogen cycling was selected...