Global biogeography of SAR11 marine bacteria

• Published in: Molecular systems biology 2012-07, Vol.8 (1), p.595-n/a
• Main Authors: Brown, Mark V, Lauro, Federico M, DeMaere, Matthew Z, Muir, Les, Wilkins, David, Thomas, Torsten, Riddle, Martin J, Fuhrman, Jed A, Andrews‐Pfannkoch, Cynthia, Hoffman, Jeffrey M, McQuaid, Jeffrey B, Allen, Andrew, Rintoul, Stephen R, Cavicchioli, Ricardo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptive radiation; Alphaproteobacteria - genetics; Amino acids; Antarctic Regions; Antarctica; Biogeography; Climate; Datasets; Ecological niches; EMBO21; EMBO23; Genome, Bacterial - genetics; Genome, Bacterial - radiation effects; Genomes; Marine Biology; metagenome; Metagenome - genetics; Metagenome - radiation effects; Models, Biological; Niches; Oceans; Pelagibacter; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Phylogeography; phylotype distribution; Polar environments; Positive selection; Proteins; Radiation; Seawater - microbiology; Sequence Alignment; Signatures; Spacer; Subgroups; Temperature
• ISSN: 1744-4292; 1744-4292
• DOI: 10.1038/msb.2012.28

The ubiquitous SAR11 bacterial clade is the most abundant type of organism in the world's oceans, but the reasons for its success are not fully elucidated. We analysed 128 surface marine metagenomes, including 37 new Antarctic metagenomes. The large size of the data set enabled internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions to be obtained from the Southern polar region, enabling the first global characterization of the distribution of SAR11, from waters spanning temperatures −2 to 30°C. Our data show a stable co‐occurrence of phylotypes within both ‘tropical’ (>20°C) and ‘polar’ (