Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM), CSIC, Barcelona, Spain.
Nantes Université, CNRS UMR 6004, LS2N, F-44000, Nantes, France.
Nat Commun. 2024 Jan 2;15(1):126. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-44550-y.
Microbial interactions are vital in maintaining ocean ecosystem function, yet their dynamic nature and complexity remain largely unexplored. Here, we use association networks to investigate possible ecological interactions in the marine microbiome among archaea, bacteria, and picoeukaryotes throughout different depths and geographical regions of the tropical and subtropical global ocean. Our findings reveal that potential microbial interactions change with depth and geographical scale, exhibiting highly heterogeneous distributions. A few potential interactions were global, meaning they occurred across regions at the same depth, while 11-36% were regional within specific depths. The bathypelagic zone had the lowest proportion of global associations, and regional associations increased with depth. Moreover, we observed that most surface water associations do not persist in deeper ocean layers despite microbial vertical dispersal. Our work contributes to a deeper understanding of the tropical and subtropical global ocean interactome, which is essential for addressing the challenges posed by global change.
微生物相互作用对于维持海洋生态系统功能至关重要，但它们的动态性质和复杂性在很大程度上仍未得到探索。在这里，我们使用关联网络来研究热带和亚热带全球海洋不同深度和地理区域的古菌、细菌和微微型真核生物之间海洋微生物组中可能存在的生态相互作用。我们的研究结果表明，潜在的微生物相互作用随深度和地理尺度而变化，表现出高度异质的分布。一些潜在的相互作用是全球性的，这意味着它们在同一深度的不同区域发生，而 11-36%的相互作用是特定深度的区域性的。深海层的全球关联比例最低，而区域关联随着深度的增加而增加。此外，我们观察到，尽管微生物垂直扩散，但大多数表层水的关联在更深的海洋层中并不存在。我们的工作有助于更深入地了解热带和亚热带全球海洋的相互作用组，这对于应对全球变化带来的挑战至关重要。
