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Marine biofilms constitute a bank of hidden microbial diversity and functional potential
- Source :
- Nature Communications, Nature Communications, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2019)
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Nature Publishing Group UK, 2019.
-
Abstract
- Recent big data analyses have illuminated marine microbial diversity from a global perspective, focusing on planktonic microorganisms. Here, we analyze 2.5 terabases of newly sequenced datasets and the Tara Oceans metagenomes to study the diversity of biofilm-forming marine microorganisms. We identify more than 7,300 biofilm-forming ‘species’ that are undetected in seawater analyses, increasing the known microbial diversity in the oceans by more than 20%, and provide evidence for differentiation across oceanic niches. Generation of a gene distribution profile reveals a functional core across the biofilms, comprised of genes from a variety of microbial phyla that may play roles in stress responses and microbe-microbe interactions. Analysis of 479 genomes reconstructed from the biofilm metagenomes reveals novel biosynthetic gene clusters and CRISPR-Cas systems. Our data highlight the previously underestimated ocean microbial diversity, and allow mining novel microbial lineages and gene resources.<br />Previous surveys of global ocean microbial diversity have focused on planktonic microbes. Here, Zhang et al. use metagenomics to study biofilm-forming marine microbes, increasing the known microbial diversity in the oceans by more than 20% and revealing new biosynthetic gene clusters and CRISPR-Cas systems.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
Microorganism
Microbial diversity
Science
Biodiversity
General Physics and Astronomy
02 engineering and technology
Biology
Genome
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Article
03 medical and health sciences
Seawater
14. Life underwater
lcsh:Science
Ecological niche
Multidisciplinary
Ecology
Phylum
fungi
Biofilm
General Chemistry
Plankton
respiratory system
021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology
030104 developmental biology
13. Climate action
Biofilms
Metagenome
lcsh:Q
CRISPR-Cas Systems
0210 nano-technology
human activities
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20411723
- Volume :
- 10
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature Communications
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....4b97b0caaa6a689b99d066d065bd0196