Global diversity and biogeography of deep-sea pelagic prokaryotes

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Ecogenomics and biogeochemical impacts of uncultivated globally abundant ocean viruses

Ocean microbes drive global-scale biogeochemical cycling, but do so under constraints imposed by viruses on host community composition, metabolism, and evolutionary trajectories. Due to sampling and cultivation challenges, genome-level viral diversity remains poorly described and grossly understudied in nature such that <1% of observed surface ocean viruses, even those that are abundant and ubiquitous, are ′known′. Here we analyze a global map of abundant, double stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses and viral-encoded auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) with genomic and ecological contexts through the Global Ocean Viromes (GOV) dataset, which includes complete genomes and large genomic fragments from both surface and deep ocean viruses sampled during the Tara Oceans and Malaspina research expeditions. A total of 15,222 epi- and mesopelagic viral populations were identified that comprised 867 viral clusters (VCs, approximately genus-level groups). This roughly triples known ocean viral populations, doubles known candidate bacterial and archaeal virus genera, and near-completely samples epipelagic communities at both the population and VC level. Thirty-eight of the 867 VCs were identified as the most impactful dsDNA viral groups in the oceans, as these were locally or globally abundant and accounted together for nearly half of the viral populations in any GOV sample. Most of these were predicted in silico to infect dominant, ecologically relevant microbes, while two thirds of them represent newly described viruses that lacked any cultivated representative. Beyond these taxon-specific ecological observations, we identified 243 viral-encoded AMGs in GOV, only 95 of which were known. Deeper analyses of 4 of these AMGs revealed that abundant viruses directly manipulate sulfur and nitrogen cycling, and do so throughout the epipelagic ocean. Together these data provide a critically-needed organismal catalog and functional context to begin meaningfully integrating viruses into ecosystem models as key players in nutrient cycling and trophic networks

Gene expression changes and community turnover differentially shape the global ocean metatranscriptome

Ocean microbial communities strongly influence the biogeochemistry, food webs, and climate of our planet. Despite recent advances in understanding their taxonomic and genomic compositions, little is known about how their transcriptomes vary globally. Here, we present a dataset of 187 metatranscriptomes and 370 metagenomes from 126 globally distributed sampling stations and establish a resource of 47 million genes to study community-level transcriptomes across depth layers from pole-to-pole. We examine gene expression changes and community turnover as the underlying mechanisms shaping community transcriptomes along these axes of environmental variation and show how their individual contributions differ for multiple biogeochemically relevant processes. Furthermore, we find the relative contribution of gene expression changes to be significantly lower in polar than in non-polar waters and hypothesize that in polar regions, alterations in community activity in response to ocean warming will be driven more strongly by changes in organismal composition than by gene regulatory mechanisms

Viral to metazoan marine plankton nucleotide sequences from the Tara Oceans expedition

A unique collection of oceanic samples was gathered by the Tara Oceans expeditions (2009-2013), targeting plankton organisms ranging from viruses to metazoans, and providing rich environmental context measurements. Thanks to recent advances in the field of genomics, extensive sequencing has been performed for a deep genomic analysis of this huge collection of samples. A strategy based on different approaches, such as metabarcoding, metagenomics, single-cell genomics and metatranscriptomics, has been chosen for analysis of size-fractionated plankton communities. Here, we provide detailed procedures applied for genomic data generation, from nucleic acids extraction to sequence production, and we describe registries of genomics datasets available at the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA, www.ebi.ac.uk/ena). The association of these metadata to the experimental procedures applied for their generation will help the scientific community to access these data and facilitate their analysis. This paper complements other efforts to provide a full description of experiments and open science resources generated from the Tara Oceans project, further extending their value for the study of the world's planktonic ecosystems

Biosynthetic potential of the global ocean microbiome

Natural microbial communities are phylogenetically and metabolically diverse. In addition to underexplored organismal groups, this diversity encompasses a rich discovery potential for ecologically and biotechnologically relevant enzymes and biochemical compounds. However, studying this diversity to identify genomic pathways for the synthesis of such compounds and assigning them to their respective hosts remains challenging. The biosynthetic potential of microorganisms in the open ocean remains largely uncharted owing to limitations in the analysis of genome-resolved data at the global scale. Here we investigated the diversity and novelty of biosynthetic gene clusters in the ocean by integrating around 10,000 microbial genomes from cultivated and single cells with more than 25,000 newly reconstructed draft genomes from more than 1,000 seawater samples. These efforts revealed approximately 40,000 putative mostly new biosynthetic gene clusters, several of which were found in previously unsuspected phylogenetic groups. Among these groups, we identified a lineage rich in biosynthetic gene clusters ('Candidatus Eudoremicrobiaceae') that belongs to an uncultivated bacterial phylum and includes some of the most biosynthetically diverse microorganisms in this environment. From these, we characterized the phospeptin and pythonamide pathways, revealing cases of unusual bioactive compound structure and enzymology, respectively. Together, this research demonstrates how microbiomics-driven strategies can enable the investigation of previously undescribed enzymes and natural products in underexplored microbial groups and environments

Diversity of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in cyanobacterial mats

The structure of the microbial community and the diversity of the functional gene for dinitrogenase reductase and its transcripts were investigated by analyzing >1400 16S rRNA gene and nifH sequences from two microbial mats situated in the intertidal zone of the Dutch barrier island Schiermonnikoog. Although both microbial mat communities were dominated by Cyanobacteria, they differed with respect to the composition of the total bacterial community. Proteobacteria-related sequences were retrieved as the second most abundant group higher up in the littoral (Station I), whereas Bacteroidetes were the second most abundant group at the low water mark (Station II). The diazotrophic (nitrogen-fixing) communities at both stations were also different, but had more operational taxonomic units in common than the total bacterial community. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis also revealed differences in the total bacterial and diazotrophic community in two consecutive years. Analysis of the expression of nifH at Station I showed a discrepancy between the present and the active diazotrophic community. Transcript abundances of the different diazotrophs changed over a 24-h cycle and were dominated by cyanobacterial lineages in the daytime, while Gammaproteobacteria peaked at night. These variations might be responsible for the pattern in nitrogenase activity observed in these mats.

Diversity and phylogeny of Baltic Sea picocyanobacteria inferred from their ITS and phycobiliprotein operons

Picocyanobacteria of the genus Synechococcus span a range of different colours, from red strains rich in phycoerythrin (PE) to green strains rich in phycocyanin (PC). Here, we show that coexistence of red and green picocyanobacteria in the Baltic Sea is widespread. The diversity and phylogeny of red and green picocyanobacteria was analysed using three different genes: 16S rRNA-ITS, the cpeBA operon of the red PE pigment and the cpcBA operon of the green PC pigment. Sequencing of 209 clones showed that Baltic Sea picocyanobacteria exhibit high levels of microdiversity. The partial nucleotide sequences of the cpcBA and cpeBA operons from the clone libraries of the Baltic Sea revealed two distinct phylogenetic clades: one clade containing mainly sequences from cultured PC-rich picocyanobacteria, while the other contains only sequences from cultivated PE-rich strains. A third clade of phycourobilin (PUB) containing strains of PE-rich Synechococcus spp. did not contain sequences from the Baltic Sea clone libraries. These findings differ from previously published phylogenies based on 16S rRNA gene analysis. Our data suggest that, in terms of their pigmentation, Synechococcus spp. represent three different lineages occupying different ecological niches in the underwater light spectrum. Strains from different lineages can coexist in light environments that overlap with their light absorption spectra