Microbial community transcriptional patterns vary in response to mesoscale forcing in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.

The physical and biological dynamics that influence phytoplankton communities in the oligotrophic ocean are complex, changing across broad temporal and spatial scales. Eukaryotic phytoplankton (e.g.

Phylogenomic fingerprinting of tempo and functions of horizontal gene transfer within ochrophytes.

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is an important source of novelty in eukaryotic genomes. This is particularly true for the ochrophytes, a diverse and important group of algae. Previous studies have shown that ochrophytes possess a mosaic of genes derived from bacteria and eukaryotic algae, acquired through chloroplast endosymbiosis and from HGTs, although understanding of the time points and mechanisms underpinning these transfers has been restricted by the depth of taxonomic sampling possible.

Transcriptional patterns of Emiliania huxleyi in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre reveal the daily rhythms of its metabolic potential.

Emiliania huxleyi is a calcifying haptophyte, contributing to both the organic and inorganic marine carbon cycles. In marine ecosystems, light is a major driver of phytoplankton physiology and ultimately carbon flow through the ecosystem. Here, we analysed a Lagrangian time-series of metatranscriptomes collected in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) to examine how in situ populations of E.

Transcriptional and Proteomic Choreography Under Phosphorus Deficiency and Re-supply in the N Fixing Cyanobacterium .

The N fixing cyanobacterium is a critically important organism in oligotrophic marine ecosystems, supplying "new" nitrogen (N) to the otherwise N-poor tropical and subtropical regions where it occurs. Low concentrations of phosphorus (P) in these regions can constrain distribution and N fixation rates. Physiological characterization of a single species in a mixed community can be challenging, and 'omic approaches are increasingly important tools for tracking nutritional physiology in a taxon-specific manner.

Transcriptional Shifts Highlight the Role of Nutrients in Harmful Brown Tide Dynamics.

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) threaten ecosystems and human health worldwide. Controlling nitrogen inputs to coastal waters is a common HAB management strategy, as nutrient concentrations often suggest coastal blooms are nitrogen-limited. However, defining best nutrient management practices is a long-standing challenge: in part, because of difficulties in directly tracking the nutritional physiology of harmful species in mixed communities.

Transcriptional patterns identify resource controls on the diazotroph Trichodesmium in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The N-fixing cyanobacterium Trichodesmium is intensely studied because of the control this organism exerts over the cycling of carbon and nitrogen in the low nutrient ocean gyres. Although iron (Fe) and phosphorus (P) bioavailability are thought to be major drivers of Trichodesmium distributions and activities, identifying resource controls on Trichodesmium is challenging, as Fe and P are often organically complexed and their bioavailability to a single species in a mixed community is difficult to constrain. Further, Fe and P geochemistries are linked through the activities of metalloenzymes, such as the alkaline phosphatases (APs) PhoX and PhoA, which are used by microbes to access dissolved organic P (DOP).

Coordinated gene expression between Trichodesmium and its microbiome over day-night cycles in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.

Trichodesmium is a widespread, N fixing marine cyanobacterium that drives inputs of newly fixed nitrogen and carbon into the oligotrophic ecosystems where it occurs. Colonies of Trichodesmium ubiquitously occur with heterotrophic bacteria that make up a diverse microbiome, and interactions within this Trichodesmium holobiont could influence the fate of fixed carbon and nitrogen. Metatranscriptome sequencing was performed on Trichodesmium colonies collected during high-frequency Lagrangian sampling in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) to identify possible interactions between the Trichodesmium host and microbiome over day-night cycles.

Epibionts dominate metabolic functional potential of Trichodesmium colonies from the oligotrophic ocean.

Trichodesmium is a genus of marine diazotrophic colonial cyanobacteria that exerts a profound influence on global biogeochemistry, by injecting 'new' nitrogen into the low nutrient systems where it occurs. Colonies of Trichodesmium ubiquitously contain a diverse assemblage of epibiotic microorganisms, constituting a microbiome on the Trichodesmium host. Metagenome sequences from Trichodesmium colonies were analyzed along a resource gradient in the western North Atlantic to examine microbiome community structure, functional diversity and metabolic contributions to the holobiont.

Fungi Contribute Critical but Spatially Varying Roles in Nitrogen and Carbon Cycling in Acid Mine Drainage.

The ecosystem roles of fungi have been extensively studied by targeting one organism and/or biological process at a time, but the full metabolic potential of fungi has rarely been captured in an environmental context. We hypothesized that fungal genome sequences could be assembled directly from the environment using metagenomics and that transcriptomics and proteomics could simultaneously reveal metabolic differentiation across habitats. We reconstructed the near-complete 27 Mbp genome of a filamentous fungus, Acidomyces richmondensis, and evaluated transcript and protein expression in floating and streamer biofilms from an acid mine drainage (AMD) system.

Diverse uncultivated ultra-small bacterial cells in groundwater.

Bacteria from phyla lacking cultivated representatives are widespread in natural systems and some have very small genomes. Here we test the hypothesis that these cells are small and thus might be enriched by filtration for coupled genomic and ultrastructural characterization. Metagenomic analysis of groundwater that passed through a ~0.

Genomic expansion of domain archaea highlights roles for organisms from new phyla in anaerobic carbon cycling.

Background: Archaea represent a significant fraction of Earth's biodiversity, yet they remain much less well understood than Bacteria. Gene surveys, a few metagenomic studies, and some single-cell sequencing projects have revealed numerous little-studied archaeal phyla. Certain lineages appear to branch deeply and may be part of a major phylum radiation.

Aquifer environment selects for microbial species cohorts in sediment and groundwater.

Little is known about the biogeography or stability of sediment-associated microbial community membership because these environments are biologically complex and generally difficult to sample. High-throughput-sequencing methods provide new opportunities to simultaneously genomically sample and track microbial community members across a large number of sampling sites or times, with higher taxonomic resolution than is associated with 16 S ribosomal RNA gene surveys, and without the disadvantages of primer bias and gene copy number uncertainty. We characterized a sediment community at 5 m depth in an aquifer adjacent to the Colorado River and tracked its most abundant 133 organisms across 36 different sediment and groundwater samples.

De novo assembly of Aureococcus anophagefferens transcriptomes reveals diverse responses to the low nutrient and low light conditions present during blooms.

Transcriptome profiling was performed on the harmful algal bloom-forming pelagophyte Aureococcus anophagefferens strain CCMP 1850 to assess responses to common stressors for dense phytoplankton blooms: low inorganic nitrogen concentrations, low inorganic phosphorus concentrations, low light levels, and a replete control. The de novo assemblies of pooled reads from all treatments reconstructed ~54,000 transcripts using Trinity, and ~31,000 transcripts using ABySS. Comparison to the strain CCMP 1984 genome showed that the majority of the gene models were present in both de novo assemblies and that roughly 95% of contigs from both assemblies mapped to the genome, with Trinity capturing slightly more genome content.

Community genomic analyses constrain the distribution of metabolic traits across the Chloroflexi phylum and indicate roles in sediment carbon cycling.

Background: Sediments are massive reservoirs of carbon compounds and host a large fraction of microbial life. Microorganisms within terrestrial aquifer sediments control buried organic carbon turnover, degrade organic contaminants, and impact drinking water quality. Recent 16S rRNA gene profiling indicates that members of the bacterial phylum Chloroflexi are common in sediment.

Vibrio parahaemolyticus type IV pili mediate interactions with diatom-derived chitin and point to an unexplored mechanism of environmental persistence.

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a naturally occurring bacterium common in coastal waters where it concentrates in shellfish through filter feeding. The bacterium is a human pathogen and the leading cause of seafood-borne gastroenteritis. Presently there is little information regarding mechanisms of environmental persistence of V.

Short-read assembly of full-length 16S amplicons reveals bacterial diversity in subsurface sediments.

In microbial ecology, a fundamental question relates to how community diversity and composition change in response to perturbation. Most studies have had limited ability to deeply sample community structure (e.g.

Biostimulation induces syntrophic interactions that impact C, S and N cycling in a sediment microbial community.

Stimulation of subsurface microorganisms to induce reductive immobilization of metals is a promising approach for bioremediation, yet the overall microbial community response is typically poorly understood. Here we used proteogenomics to test the hypothesis that excess input of acetate activates complex community functioning and syntrophic interactions among autotrophs and heterotrophs. A flow-through sediment column was incubated in a groundwater well of an acetate-amended aquifer and recovered during microbial sulfate reduction.