Department of Earth Sciences, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA.
Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
ISME J. 2023 Jul;17(7):976-983. doi: 10.1038/s41396-023-01410-3. Epub 2023 Apr 15.
While the field of microbial biogeography has largely focused on the contributions of abiotic factors to community patterns, the potential influence of biotic interactions in structuring microbial communities, such as those mediated by the production of specialized metabolites, remains largely unknown. Here, we examined the relationship between microbial community structure and specialized metabolism at local spatial scales in marine sediment samples collected from the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Moorea, French Polynesia. By employing a multi-omic approach to characterize the taxonomic, functional, and specialized metabolite composition within sediment communities, we find that biogeographic patterns were driven by local scale processes (e.g., biotic interactions) and largely independent of dispersal limitation. Specifically, we observed high variation in biosynthetic potential (based on Bray-Curtis dissimilarity) between samples, even within 1 m plots, that reflected uncharacterized chemical space associated with site-specific metabolomes. Ultimately, connecting biosynthetic potential to community metabolomes facilitated the in situ detection of natural products and revealed new insights into the complex metabolic dynamics associated with sediment microbial communities. Our study demonstrates the potential to integrate biosynthetic genes and metabolite production into assessments of microbial community dynamics.
虽然微生物生物地理学领域主要关注非生物因素对群落模式的贡献，但生物相互作用在构建微生物群落结构方面的潜在影响（如由特殊代谢产物产生介导的相互作用）在很大程度上仍然未知。在这里，我们在法国波利尼西亚莫雷阿的长期生态研究 (LTER) 地点采集的海洋沉积物样本中，在局部空间尺度上研究了微生物群落结构与特殊代谢之间的关系。通过采用多组学方法来描述沉积物群落中的分类学、功能和特殊代谢产物组成，我们发现生物地理模式是由局部尺度过程（例如生物相互作用）驱动的，并且在很大程度上独立于扩散限制。具体来说，我们观察到样本之间（即使在 1 米的样方内）生物合成潜力（基于 Bray-Curtis 不相似性）存在很大差异，这反映了与特定地点代谢组相关的未表征的化学空间。最终，将生物合成潜力与群落代谢组学联系起来，有助于原位检测天然产物，并深入了解与沉积物微生物群落相关的复杂代谢动态。我们的研究表明，将生物合成基因和代谢产物生产纳入微生物群落动态评估中具有潜力。
