The active free-living bathypelagic microbiome is largely dominated by rare surface taxa.

ABSTRACT: A persistent microbial seed bank is postulated to sustain the marine biosphere, and recent findings show that prokaryotic taxa present in the ocean's surface dominate prokaryotic communities throughout the water column. Yet, environmental conditions exert a tight control on the activity of prokaryotes, and drastic changes in these conditions are known to occur from the surface to deep waters. The simultaneous characterization of the total (DNA) and active (i.e. with potential for protein synthesis, RNA) free-living communities in 13 stations distributed across the tropical and subtropical global ocean allowed us to assess their change in structure and diversity along the water column. We observed that active communities were surprisingly more similar along the vertical gradient than total

SUBMITTER: Sebastian M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10919342 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature