A timeline of bacterial and archaeal diversification in the ocean.

ABSTRACT: Microbial plankton play a central role in marine biogeochemical cycles, but the timing in which abundant lineages diversified into ocean environments remains unclear. Here, we reconstructed the timeline in which major clades of bacteria and archaea colonized the ocean using a high-resolution benchmarked phylogenetic tree that allows for simultaneous and direct comparison of the ages of multiple divergent lineages. Our findings show that the diversification of the most prevalent marine clades spans throughout a period of 2.2 Ga, with most clades colonizing the ocean during the last 800 million years. The oldest clades - SAR202, SAR324, Ca. Marinimicrobia, and Marine Group II - diversified around the time of the Great Oxidation Event, during which oxygen concentration increased but re

SUBMITTER: Martinez-Gutierrez CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10703444 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature