The environment drives microbial trait variability in aquatic habitats

Area of Science:

• Microbial ecology
• Genomics
• Environmental science

Background:

• Predicting microbial community dynamics hinges on understanding assembly mechanisms.
• Aquatic microbial communities are complex and influenced by various environmental factors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate factors influencing microbial community assembly by examining temporal gene dynamics.
• To test hypotheses regarding the impact of metacommunity size, gene copy number, and protein location on gene allele variability.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of five aquatic metagenome time-series from marine and lake environments.
• Trait-based approach focusing on gene-specific temporal allele variability.
• Comparison of variability between single-copy and multicopy genes, and intracellular versus extracellular proteins.

Main Results:

• Increased seasonal metacommunity size and multicopy genes correlated with higher temporal gene allele variability across all datasets.
• Subcellular protein location showed variable effects on gene variability across different time-series.
• An iron transporter gene exhibited the highest allele variability, indicating a role in phage-prokaryote interactions.

Conclusions:

• Metacommunity size and gene copy number are key drivers of microbial gene variability.
• Iron transporter genes, targeted by phages, play a significant role in the assembly and maintenance of aquatic microbial diversity.