Structure and function of the global ocean microbiome

Sunagawa, Shinichi ... et. al.-- Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Aquatic Sciences: Global And Regional Perspectives - North Meets South, 22-27 February 2015, Granada, SpainWe present the initial analysis of 243 metagenomes collected by the TARA Oceans expedition. Samples were collected at three depths (surface, deep chlorophyll maximum, and mesopelagic) at 68 geographically dispersed stations, covering all major ocean basins, except the Artic. After DNA extraction and sequencing, we have assembled the resulting 7.2 Terabasepairs, computationally predicted genes, and in combination with publicly available data, formed a non-redundant catalog consisting of 40 million genes, the majority of which are novel. Our analysis of function and structure community focused on 139 prokaryotic enriched samples, from which we determined that the overall community is mainly determined by depth stratification. Within the photic zone, we report that temperature is the main environmental correlate with community structure. We also observe that the majority of the prokaryotic gene abundance stems from a small core set of orthologous groups, which is present in all samples and largely shared with microbial communities in other environments. The functional profile of these core genes is stable across geographic and environmental gradients, while non-core genes show evidence of adaptation to the local environmentPeer Reviewe