Ocean plankton. Structure and function of the global ocean microbiome

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Oceanography
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Microbial life is crucial for global biogeochemical cycles.
• Understanding microbial functional diversity and community structure in oceans is challenging.
• Vast amounts of metagenomic data offer opportunities to explore marine microbial ecosystems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create a comprehensive ocean microbial reference gene catalog.
• To investigate the ecological determinants of microbial community structure in marine environments.
• To compare the functional diversity of ocean and human gut microbiomes.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 7.2 terabases of metagenomic data from 243 Tara Oceans samples.
• Generation of a reference gene catalog with over 40 million nonredundant sequences.
• Examination of 139 prokaryote-enriched samples to determine community composition and drivers.

Main Results:

• A global ocean microbial reference gene catalog was established, containing mostly novel sequences.
• Vertical stratification of microbial communities was observed, with temperature being the primary driver in epipelagic zones.
• Over 73% of the identified core ocean microbial functionality is shared with the human gut microbiome.

Conclusions:

• Marine microbial communities display distinct stratification patterns influenced by environmental factors like temperature.
• A significant overlap in core functionality exists between ocean and human gut microbiomes, despite different environments.
• This study provides a foundational resource for understanding global ocean microbial ecology and its connections to other ecosystems.