Genomic ecology of Marine Group II, the most common marine planktonic Archaea across the surface ocean

In this study, we explore the genomic ecology of the Marine Group II (MGII), the main marine planktonicEuryarchaeota, and test if it is composed of different ecologically relevant units. We re ‐analyzedTara Oceans metagenomes from the photic layer and the deep ocean by annotating sequences against a custom MGII database and by mapping gene co ‐occurrences. Our data provide a global view of the distribution ofEuryarchaeota, and more specifically of MGII subgroups, and reveal their association to a number of gene ‐coding sequences. In particular, we show that MGII proteorhodopsins were detected in both the surface and the deep chlorophyll maximum layer and that different clusters of these light harvesting proteins were present. Our approach helped describing the set of genes found together with specific MG II subgroups. We could thus define genomic environments that could theoretically describe ecologically meaningful units and the ecological niche that they occupy.

Source: MicrobiologyOpen - July 1, 2019 Category: Microbiology Authors: Olivier Pereira, Corentin Hochart, Jean Christophe Auguet, Didier Debroas, Pierre E. Galand Tags: ORIGINAL ARTICLE Source Type: research