Abstract
Microbes are dominant drivers of biogeochemical processes, yet drawing a global picture of functional diversity, microbial community structure, and their ecological determinants remains a grand challenge. We analyzed 7.2 terabases of metagenomic data from 243 Tara Oceans samples from 68 locations in epipelagic and mesopelagic waters across the globe to generate an ocean microbial reference gene catalog with textgreater40 million nonredundant, mostly novel sequences from viruses, prokaryotes, and picoeukaryotes. Using 139 prokaryote-enriched samples, containing textgreater35,000 species, we show vertical stratification with epipelagic community composition mostly driven by temperature rather than other environmental factors or geography. We identify ocean microbial core functionality and reveal that textgreater73% of its abundance is shared with the human gut microbiome despite the physicochemical differences between these two ecosystems.
Fran Cornejo-Castillo
Staff scientist
Josep M. Gasol
Staff scientist
