Chen Huaihai, Ma Kayan, Huang Yu, Yang Yuchun, Ma Zilong, Chu Chengjin
State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, China.
State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Front Microbiol. 2021 Nov 1;12:719725. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.719725. eCollection 2021.
A tight association between microbial function and taxonomy is the basis of functional prediction based on taxonomy, but such associations have been controversial in water biomes largely due to the probable prevalence of functional redundancy. However, previous studies on this topic used a relatively coarse resolution of ecosystem functioning, potentially inflating the estimated functional redundancy. Thus, a comprehensive evaluation of the association between high-resolution functional traits and taxonomic diversity obtained from fresh and saline water metagenomic data is urgently needed. Here, we examined 938 functionally and taxonomically annotated water metagenomes obtained worldwide to scrutinize the connection between function and taxonomy, and to identify the key driver of water metagenomes function or taxonomic composition at a global scale. We found that pairwise similarity of function was significantly associated with taxonomy, though taxonomy had higher global dissimilarity than function. Classification into six water biomes resulted in greater variation in taxonomic compositions than functional profiles, as the key regulating factor was salinity. Fresh water microbes harbored distinct functional and taxonomic structures from microbes in saline water biomes, despite that taxonomy was more susceptible to gradient of geography and climate than function. In summary, our results find a significant relationship between taxonomic diversity and microbial functioning in global water metagenomes, although microbial taxonomic compositions vary to a larger extent than functional profiles in aquatic ecosystems, suggesting the possibility and necessity for functional prediction of microorganisms based on taxonomy in global aquatic ecosystems.
微生物功能与分类学之间的紧密关联是基于分类学进行功能预测的基础，但在水生物群落中，这种关联一直存在争议，主要原因可能是功能冗余普遍存在。然而，以往关于这一主题的研究对生态系统功能的分辨率相对较低，可能夸大了估计的功能冗余。因此，迫切需要对从淡水和咸水宏基因组数据中获得的高分辨率功能特征与分类多样性之间的关联进行全面评估。在这里，我们研究了全球范围内938个经过功能和分类注释的水宏基因组，以仔细审查功能与分类学之间的联系，并在全球范围内确定水宏基因组功能或分类组成的关键驱动因素。我们发现，功能的成对相似性与分类学显著相关，尽管分类学在全球范围内的差异比功能更大。分为六个水生物群落后，分类组成的变化比功能概况更大，因为关键调节因素是盐度。尽管分类学比功能更容易受到地理和气候梯度的影响，但淡水微生物与咸水生物群落中的微生物具有不同的功能和分类结构。总之，我们的研究结果发现全球水宏基因组中分类多样性与微生物功能之间存在显著关系，尽管水生生态系统中微生物分类组成的变化程度大于功能概况，这表明在全球水生生态系统中基于分类学对微生物进行功能预测的可能性和必要性。
