Archaeal 16S rRNA gene compositions and environmental factors of four distinct solfataric acidic hot springs in Kirishima, Japan were compared. The four ponds were selected by differences of temperature and total dissolved elemental concentration as follows: (1) Pond-A: 93°C and 1679？mg？L？1, (2) Pond-B: 66°C and 2248？mg？L？1, (3) Pond-C: 88°C and 198？mg？L？1, and (4) Pond-D: 67°C and 340？mg？L？1. In total, 431 clones of 16S rRNA gene were classified into 26 phylotypes. In Pond-B, the archaeal diversity was the highest among the four, and the members of the order Sulfolobales were dominant. The Pond-D also showed relatively high diversity, and the most frequent group was uncultured thermoacidic spring clone group. In contrast to Pond-B and Pond-D, much less diverse archaeal clones were detected in Pond-A and Pond-C showing higher temperatures. However, dominant groups in these ponds were also different from each other. The members of the order Sulfolobales shared 89% of total clones in Pond-A, and the uncultured crenarchaeal groups shared 99% of total Pond-C clones. Therefore, species compositions and biodiversity were clearly different among the ponds showing different temperatures and dissolved elemental concentrations. 1. Introduction The extreme environments are unique places to study how organisms interact with and adapt to the surroundings. Some of high temperature environments especially such as terrestrial hot springs and oceanic hydrothermal vents may resemble volcanic habitats that are thought to have existed on early Earth [1–3]. Indeed, some of the archaeal and bacterial lineages identified from hot springs appear to be related to lineages close to the root of the phylogenetic tree [4]. Hot spring microbial communities have been extensively studied in many areas such as Yellowstone National Park in the United States [5–10], Kamchatka hot springs in Russia [11], the island of the Lesser Antilles [12, 13], Icelandic hot springs [11, 14], Mt. Unzen hot springs in Japan [15], Ohwakudani hot springs in Japan [16], Pisciarelli hot springs in Italy [17], Bor Khlueng hot springs in Thailand [18], Wai-o-tapu geothermal area in New Zealand [19], and Tengchong hot springs in China [20]. These pioneering works enabled better appreciation of prokaryotic communities in the high temperature environments. However, despite decades of research, we still understand relatively little about the relationship between the environmental factors and hot spring prokaryotic community. It is important to reveal that which environmental factors affect prokaryotic community
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