Understanding niche partitioning among microbial taxa in the Central Pacific using Metaproteomics

Analyzing the distribution of microbial functional roles can provide much needed context for understanding microbial communities in the Central Pacific. This presentation is focused on an analysis of variation among integral proteins along multiple scales. The main two points of emphasis are the variance of key substrate binding transport system proteins in Gammaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Actinobacteria, and Euryarchaeota and photosynthetic proteins in Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus. Metaproteomics data, from the 2016 ProteOMZ expedition, was analyzed to study spatial variation among bacterial community composition and the differences in function over space. The cruise sampled sites across 5,000 km through parts of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, Eastern Tropical North Pacific, and the equatorial upwelling zone.   The first emphasis focuses on how substrate preference by heterotrophic prokaryotes varies along vertical scales by analyzing substrate binding transport proteins of carbon substrates. The second emphasis addresses challenges in light harvesting, photoinhibition, and iron stress experienced by picocyanobacteria by focusing on variance in photosynthetic protein distributions.  Both Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus have unique responses to these issues and tracking the associated proteins can provide insight into the environmental challenges they face. The main takeaways for each emphasis are a definitive stratification of metabolic transporters and contrasting niche strategies between picocyanobacterial taxa. 

Presentation Preference: Oral

Primary Presenter: Huck Bagby, University of Georgia (hcb07500@uga.edu)

Authors:

Huck Bagby, University of Georgia  (hcb07500@uga.edu)

Mathew McIlvan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution  (mmcilvin@whoi.edu)

Mak Saito, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution  (msaito@whoi.edu)

Jaclyn Saunders, University of Georgia  (jaci@uga.edu)