Reconstructing the ecosystem functions of the active microbial community within Baltic Sea oxygen depleted sediments

In the present study, we sought to establish whether and to what extent the functional capacities were actually expressed in the Landsort Deep anoxic sediment, using a metatranscriptomic approach. Specifically, given the global extension of anoxic ‘dead zones’ and the global importance of marine sediment as carbon sink, we were interested to investigate if, and how, the sediment community of the anoxic Landsort Deep sediment mineralized the accumulating carbon. Results reveal the extent of what ecosystem functions, and which nutrient recycling processes, the anoxic sediment microbial communities contribute to. This is knowledge which is important to the decision support tools underlying the Helsinki Commission Baltic Sea Action Plan.