Carbon–Nitrogen–Sulfur-Related Microbial Taxa and Genes Maintained the Stability of Microbial Communities in Coals

[Image: see text] Coal microbes are the predominant form of life in the subsurface ecosystem, which play a vital role in biogeochemical cycles. However, the systematic information about carbon–nitrogen–sulfur (C–N–S)-related microbial communities in coal seams is limited. In this study, 16S rRNA gene data from a total of 93 microbial communities in coals were collected for meta-analysis. The results showed that 718 functional genera were related to the C–N–S cycle, wherein N(2) fixation, denitrification, and C degradation groups dominated in relative abundance, Chao1 richness, Shannon diversity, and niche width. Genus Pseudomonas having the most C–N–S-related functions showed the highest relative abundance, and genus Herbaspirillum with a higher abundance participated in C degradation, CH(4) oxidation, N(2) fixation, ammoxidation, and denitrification. Such Herbaspirillum was a core genus in the co-occurrence network of microbial prokaryotes and showed higher levels in weight degree, betweenness centrality, and eigenvector centrality. In addition, most of the methanogens could fix N(2) and dominated in the N(2) fixation groups. Among them, genera Methanoculleus and Methanosaeta showed higher levels in the betweenness centrality index. In addition, the genus Clostridium was linked to the methanogenesis co-occurrence network module. In parallel, the S reduction gene was present in the highest total relative abundance of genes, followed by the C degradation and the denitrification genes, and S genes (especially cys genes) were the main genes linked to the co-occurrence network of the C–N–S-related genes. In summary, this study strengthened our knowledge regarding the C–N–S-related coal microbial communities, which is of great significance in understanding the microbial ecology and geochemical cycle of coals.