OPENING A (META)GENOMIC WINDOW INTO MODULAR DENITRIFICATION PATHWAY COMPONENTS IN SUNLIT AND DARK OCEAN WATERS

An invisible majority of life on Earth comprised of interacting bacterial and archaeal cells (the Prokaryotes) plays integral roles in driving global-scale biogeochemical cycles. Despite their outsize roles and two decades of shotgun sequence exploration, we know surprisingly little about the fine structure of uncultivated prokaryotic communities. This is especially true in marine environments where most studies have focused on sunlit waters that comprise only a small fraction of total ocean volume. Recent advances in culture independent methods enable identification and analysis of prokaryotic cells through construction of single-cell amplified genomes (SAGs) with increased coverage and precise taxonomic resolution. Here, we utilize 9,000 globally sourced SAGs of dark ocean planktonic Prokaryotes as taxonomic anchors to expand gene-centric phylogenies for denitrification pathway components (NapA/NarG, NirK/NirS, NorBC, and NosZ) relevant to biological nitrogen loss and greenhouse gas production using the Tree-based Sensitive and Accurate Phylogenetic Profiler (TreeSAPP). By iteratively adding environmentally relevant SAGs in combination with metagenome assembled genomes and raw sequencing reads from the same locations, we explored the spatiotemporal distribution and expression of denitrification genes in the Northeastern subarctic Pacific (NESAP) ocean waters providing quantitative resolution on the modularity of this pathway along gradients of oxygen and nitrate that are increasingly sensitive to the forcing effects of climate change.

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Primary Presenter: Julia Anstett, University of British Columbia (julia.anstett@alumni.ubc.ca)

Authors:

Julia Anstett, University of British Columbia  (julia.anstett@alumni.ubc.ca)

Ryan McLaughlin, University of British Columbia  (mclaughlinr2@gmail.com)

Connor Morgan-Lang, University of British Columbia  (c.morganlang@gmail.com)

Alvaro Plominsky, University of California San Diego  (alm067@ucsd.edu)

Alyse Kiesser, University of British Columbia  (alyse.kiesser@ubc.ca)

Tianyi Chang, Bigelow Laboratory for Oceanographic Sciences  (tchang@bigelow.org)

Maria Pachiadaki, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute  (mpachiadaki@whoi.edu)

Greg Gavelis, Bigelow Laboratory for Oceanographic Sciences  (ggavelis@bigelow.org)

Keir Macartney, Bigelow Laboratory for Oceanographic Sciences  (kmacartney@bigelow.org)

Jame La Clair, University of California San Diego  (jlaclair@ucsd.edu)

Alaina Weinheimer, Bigelow Laboratory for Oceanographic Sciences  (aweinheimer@bigelow.org)

Julia Brown, Bigelow Laboratory for Oceanographic Sciences  (julia@bigelow.org)

Michael Burkart, University of California San Diego  (mburkart@ucsd.edu)

Federico Baltar, University of Vienna  (federico.baltar@univie.ac.at)

Klaus Jürgens, Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research  (klaus.juergens@io-warnemuende.de)

Osvaldo Ulloa, Universidad de Concepción  (oulloa@udec.cl)

Takuro Nunoura, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)  (takuron@jamstec.go.jp)

Eva Sintes, Instituto Español De Oceanografía  (eva.sintes@univie.ac.at)

Gerhard Herndl, University of Vienna  (gerhard.herndl@univie.ac.at)

Ramunas Stepanauskas, Bigelow Laboratory for Oceanographic Sciences  (rstepanauskas@bigelow.org)

Steven Hallam, University of British Columbia  (shallam@mail.ubc.ca)