About

Dr. Andreas Teske is a principal investigator at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. He is an expert on molecular microbial systematics and community structure in marine environments. His research group extensively studies microbial community structure in hydrocarbon seep microbial ecosystems in the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Mexico, utilizing techniques such as functional genes, rRNA genes, pyrosequencing, and FISH. Dr. Teske began working on the microbial impact of the Macondo oil spill when the first research cruise visited the wellhead area in May 2010, contributing to understanding microbial dynamics and biodegradation processes related to hydrocarbon contamination in marine ecosystems.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Evolutionary biology
• Computer Science
• Computational biology
• Ecology
• Paleontology
• Data science
• Library science
• Astronomy
• World Wide Web
• Chemistry
• Environmental chemistry
• Geology

Selected publications

• Raw amplicon, metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data from R/V JOIDES Resolution IODP-385 Guaymas Basin Tectonics and Biosphere expedition between September and November 2019

  Open MIND · 2026-03-16

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 385 (IODP385) drilled organic-rich sediments and intruded sills in the off-axis region and axial graben of the northern spreading segment of Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California. Guaymas Basin is characterized by high heat flow and magmatism in the form of sill intrusions into sediments, which extends tens of kilometers off axis. Sill intrusions provide transient heat sources that mobilize buried sedimentary carbon and drive hydrothermal circulation. The resulting thermal and geochemical gradients shape abundance, composition, and activity of the deep subsurface biosphere of the basin. Among the aims of IODP385 was to examine the subsurface biosphere of Guaymas Basin and its responses and adaptations to hydrothermal conditions. Using high-throughput 16S ribosomal nucleic acid sequencing we examined linkages and feedbacks between mineral composition, temperature, geochemistry, and microbial populations. The metagenomic analyses of the hydrothermally heated, sediment layers of Guaymas Basin examined the distribution and activity patterns of bacteria and archaea along thermal, geochemical and cell count gradients. Analyses of gene expression of subsurface bacteria and archaea provided insights into their physiological adaptations to in situ subsurface conditions. All available datasets can be found in the the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) GenBank database under the Bioproject accession number PRJNA909197.

  PublisherDOI

• Millimetre‐Scale Stratification of Microbial Communities in Hydrothermal Sediments

  Environmental Microbiology · 2026-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Resolving the spatial organisation of microbial populations in environments shaped by steep thermal and geochemical gradients remains a challenge in environmental biogeochemistry. Conventional molecular biomarker or gene-based approaches typically require large volumes of homogenised samples, limiting their ability to depict spatially structured microbial ecosystems, where critical microbial processes occur on millimetre scales. To overcome these limitations, we applied high-resolution mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) to an 11.5 cm long sediment section from the hydrothermal Cathedral Hill mat complex in the Guaymas Basin, known for its extreme temperatures and sharp geochemical gradients. The μm-scaled spatial resolution unveiled a nuanced lipidome zonation tightly compressed to a narrow 5-cm segment below the sediment-water interface. The surface layer (above 1.1 cmbsf) hosts molecular patterns primarily shaped by opposing oxygen and sulphide gradients, followed by a near-seamless transition to an anoxic zone dominated by anaerobic methane-oxidising archaea (ANME) and sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB). At greater depth, molecular signals indicative of active microbial communities remained below the detection limit except for diverse, potentially ANME- and SRB-related lipids concentrated within a siliceous concretion. The sharp transitions in lipid zonation hint at persistent redox zones and resilient microbial niches under intense fluid flow and dynamic geochemical gradients.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Quantifying hydrothermal ammonium mobilization from sediment and implications for the marine biosphere: a case study from the Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California

  UNC Libraries · 2025-08-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Fluid-rock interactions in hydrothermal systems are capable of liberating ammonium (NH4+) from sedimentary organic material and making it bioavailable for benthic and pelagic microbial communities. Hydrothermal systems in organic-rich sedimentary basins are therefore thought to have played a key role in supplying bioavailable nitrogen to the early biosphere. To place new quantitative bounds on this process, we examined sediments from active hydrothermal systems in the Guaymas Basin, a young oceanic spreading center in the Gulf of California. We analysed four shallow sediment cores that were taken in the Guaymas Basin’s hydrothermally-active Southern Trough. We used a combination of isotopic tracers (δ15N, δ13C) and elemental abundances to explore nitrogen and metal mobility in buried sediments. We found that ca. 54% of the organically-bound nitrogen is remobilized by active seepage in the top 10 cm of the sediment package within as little as 27–83 yr. Extrapolating these findings over the hydrothermally-active area of the basin yields an ammonium seepage flux of ca. 1.3–4.1 mol/s. In addition, high temperature venting liberates ca. 156–187 mol/s, as estimated from previous data. Assuming biological uptake of hydrothermally recycled ammonium in the water column, these fluxes could support up to 1.3% and 58% of export productivity, respectively. Our data also reveal that the accumulation of micronutrients or potentially toxic metals is influenced by the presence of organic material in seep sediments. The Guaymas case study demonstrates that hydrothermal seepage in sedimentary basins can create a significant nutrient flux and is an efficient means of recycling nutrients from organic matter at shallow burial depths. Hydrothermal nutrient fluxes could therefore have enhanced microbial activity in Earth’s history, in particular during time intervals when Earth’s oceans are thought to have been nutrient-depleted. Our data also highlight the role of organic material in enhancing metal mobilization and accumulation in otherwise metal-starved hydrothermal seeps.

  PublisherDOI

• Author Correction: Elevated heterotrophic activity in Guaymas Basin hydrothermal plumes influences deep-sea carbon cycling

  Nature Communications · 2025-07-14

  erratumOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Complex bacterial diversity of Guaymas Basin hydrothermal sediments revealed by synthetic long-read sequencing (LoopSeq)

  Frontiers in Microbiology · 2025-01-07

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Hydrothermal sediments host phylogenetically diverse and physiologically complex microbial communities. Previous studies of microbial community structure in hydrothermal sediments have typically used short-read sequencing approaches. To improve on these approaches, we use LoopSeq, a high-throughput synthetic long-read sequencing method that has yielded promising results in analyses of microbial ecosystems, such as the human gut microbiome. In this study, LoopSeq is used to obtain near-full length (approximately 1,400–1,500 nucleotides) bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences from hydrothermal sediments in Guaymas Basin. Based on these sequences, high-quality alignments and phylogenetic analyses provided new insights into previously unrecognized taxonomic diversity of sulfur-cycling microorganisms and their distribution along a lateral hydrothermal gradient. Detailed phylogenies for free-living and syntrophic sulfur-cycling bacterial lineages identified well-supported monophyletic clusters that have implications for the taxonomic classification of these groups. Particularly, we identify clusters within Candidatus Desulfofervidus that represent unexplored physiological and genomic diversity. In general, LoopSeq-derived 16S rRNA gene sequences aligned consistently with reference sequences in GenBank; however, chimeras were prevalent in sequences as affiliated with the thermophilic Candidatus Desulfofervidus and Thermodesulfobacterium , and in smaller numbers within the sulfur-oxidizing family Beggiatoaceae . Our analysis of sediments along a well-documented thermal and geochemical gradient show how lineages affiliated with different sulfur-cycling taxonomic groups persist throughout surficial hydrothermal sediments in the Guaymas Basin.

  PublisherDOI

• Climate change regulated carbonate production and accumulation in the Guaymas Basin over the past ca. 450,000 years

  Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology · 2025-02-28 · 3 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Hunting extreme microbes that redefine the limits of life

  Nature · 2025-05-12

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Heat flow and thermal regime in the Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California: Estimates of conductive and advective heat transport

  UNC Libraries · 2025-03-20

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Heat flow is estimated at eight sites drilled int the Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California, during the International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 385. The expedition sought to understand the thermal regime of the basin and heat transfer between off‐axis sills intruding the organic‐rich sediments of the Guaymas Basin, and the basin floor. The distinct sedimentation rates, active tectonics, and magmatism make the basin interesting for scientific discoveries. Results show that sedimentation corrected heat flow values range 119–221 mW/m 2 in the basin and 257–1003 mW/m 2 at the site of a young sill intrusion, denominated Ringvent. Thermal analysis shows that heat in the Guaymas Basin is being dissipated by conduction for plate ages >0.2 Ma, whereas younger plate ages are in a state of transient cooling by both conduction and advection. Drilling sites show that Ringvent is an active sill being cooled down slowly by circulating fluids with discharge velocities of 10–200 mm/yr. Possible recharge sites are located ca. 1 km away from the sill's border. Modelling of the heat output at Ringvent indicates a sill thickness of ca. 240 m. A simple order‐of‐magnitude model predicts that relatively small amounts of magma are needed to account for the elevated heat flow in non‐volcanic, sediment‐filled rifts like the central and northern Gulf of California in which heating of the upper crust is achieved via advection by sill emplacement and hydrothermal circulation. Multiple timescales of cooling control the crustal, chemical and biological evolution of the Guaymas Basin. Here, we recognize at least four timescales: the time interval between intrusions (ca. 10 3  yr), the thermal relaxation time of sills (ca. 10 4  yr), the characteristic cooling time of the sediments (ca. 10 5  yr), and the cooling of the entire crust at geologic timescales.

  PublisherDOI

• Multiple modes of methanogenesis in deep hydrothermally-influenced subsurface sediments

  Research Square · 2025-12-05

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tracing microbial carbon sources in hydrothermal sediments by 13C isotopic analysis of bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA

  UNC Libraries · 2025-11-04

  articleOpen access

  Microbial communities in hydrothermal sediments of Guaymas Basin assimilate a wide range of carbon sources, detrital organic matter, DIC of hydrothermal and water column origin, as well as methane, light alkanes and petroleum hydrocarbons. Here we analyze the abundances and 13C-isotopic values of these carbon pools, and assess the relative importance of these carbon sources by comparison with δ13C-isotopic composition of bacterial and archaeal rRNA. In almost all hydrothermal sediments, δ13C-rRNA values for bacterial and archaea are lighter (more 13C-depleted) than those of TOC and DIC, indicating that carbon from 13C-depleted methane permeates the microbial food web, with no systematic preference for bacteria or archaea. However, the omnipresence of detrital organic matter of photosynthetic origin means that any methane signal in bacterial and archaeal δ13C-rRNA values is diluted by the heterotrophic background. In non-hydrothermal background sediment where methane is lacking, the δ13C-rRNA values for bacterial and archaea are heavier (less 13C-depleted) and indicate the preferential utilization of detrital TOC of photosynthetic origin. The presence of petroleum in some methane-rich hydrothermal cores does not visibly change the δ13C-rRNA values for bacterial and archaea, since the δ13C-isotopic composition of hydrothermal petroleum in Guaymas Basin is similar to its source, detrital organic carbon, and thus does not separate fossil carbon utilizers from general heterotrophs. When δ13C-depleted methane competes with high concentrations of δ13C-repleted (heavier) short-chain alkanes, δ13C-rRNA values for bacteria and archaea are noticeably heavier than those in methane-rich but alkane-poor sediments, suggesting short-chain alkane incorporation. Under alkane-rich conditions, consistent differences between bacterial and archaea δ13C-rRNA were observed, suggesting the impact of distinct bacterial and archaeal alkane assimilation pathways. To summarize, we note that the availability of different sedimentary or hydrothermal carbon sources—in particular hydrothermal methane—is reflected in changing δ13C-rRNA values for bacteria and archaea.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• MO: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: A MICROBIAL OBSERVATORY EXAMINING MICROBIAL ABUNDANCE, DIVERSITY, ASSOCIATIONS AND ACTIVITY AT SEAFLOOR BRINE SEEPS

  NSF · $400k · 2008–2014

• Collaborative Research: Drilling Site Survey-Life in Subseafloor Sediments of the South Pacific Gyre

  NSF · $110k · 2005–2007

• RAPID proposal: Site characterization cruise to document the active and extensive subsurface biosphere in the Guaymas Basin

  NSF · $58k · 2014–2016

• Collaborative Research: Next generation physiology: a systems-level understanding of microbes driving carbon cycling in marine sediments

  NSF · $268k · 2018–2022

• Microbial carbon and sulfur cycling in the hydrothermally altered sediments of Guaymas Basin

  NSF · $696k · 2007–2012

Frequent coauthors

• Virginia P. Edgcomb

  177 shared

• Ivano W. Aiello

  Moss Landing Marine Laboratories

  171 shared

• Guangchao Zhuang

  Ocean University of China

  170 shared

• Verena B. Heuer

  University of Bremen

  160 shared

• Daniel Lizarralde

  158 shared

• Yuki Morono

  155 shared

• Tobias W. Höfig

  Forschungszentrum Jülich

  152 shared

• Swanne Gontharet

  150 shared

Labs

• GULF ECOGIGPI