Metatranscriptomics of the prokaryotic community in response to atmospheric deposition in the Western North Pacific Ocean
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Climate Change Biology
- Keywords
- bacterial community, aerosol, metatranscriptomics, SAR11, nutrient enrichment, Western North Pacific Ocean
- Copyright
- © 2017 Tan et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2017. Metatranscriptomics of the prokaryotic community in response to atmospheric deposition in the Western North Pacific Ocean. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3292v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3292v1
Abstract
Atmospheric deposition represents a major vector of both macro- and micro-nutrients to the oligotrophic open oceans, potentially imposing a profound impact on the functioning of the microbial community. Whereas responses of the prokaryotes to atmospheric deposition are being studied at the community level, corresponding functional changes are essentially unknown. Here we used metatranscriptomic approaches to elucidate taxonomic and functional profiles of the prokaryotic community in response to Asian aerosols in the Western North Pacific Ocean. While Bacteria were downrepresented, Virus and Archaea were overrepresented in the aerosol treatment compared to the control. Within Bacteria, transcripts related to Cyanobacteria, including Prochlorococcus, Trichodesmium and Synechococcus, decreased dramatically, whereas transcripts related to Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes showed differential increases in the aerosol treatment. Nutrients and organic matters were enriched as evidenced by an overexpression of transporters for amino acids and utilization of various carbohydrates and a down-expression of transcripts related with phosphorus metabolism. Increased expression included transcripts involved in tricarboxylic acid cycle, pentose phosphate pathway, glycolysis and gluconeogenesis. Unexpectedly, the expression of transcripts associated with Fe metabolism suggested that Fe limitation was intensified. Transcripts associated with N fixation declined, corresponding to the decline of diazotroph-related transcripts. This result is against the paradigm of Fe fertilization from atmospheric deposition but may represent an extreme case that Fe was scavenged after aerosol addition. Negative effects included impaired sugar utilization and the stimulation of oxidative stress and heavy metal toxicity. All these changes lead the community to an energy-conserving lifestyle and promoted motility, chemotaxis and interspecies competition and interaction. The results provide new insights into the biogeochemical impacts of atmospheric deposition in the Western North Pacific Ocean.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Taxonomic classification of top 10 bacterial genera
Figure S1 Taxonomic classification of top 10 bacterial genera.
Overview of the metatranscriptomic libraries
Supplemental Table S1 Overview of the metatranscriptomic libraries.
Mass percentage of the aerosol components in every gram of aerosol samples collected in a remote place in Taipei, Taiwan in 2014
Table S2 Mass percentage of the aerosol components in every gram of aerosol samples collected in a remote place in Taipei, Taiwan in 2014.
The number of transcripts within significantly expressed SEED categories (level 1) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S2 The number of transcripts within significantly (p-corrected value <0.05) expressed SEED categories (level 1) of the bacterial community. The subsystems are sorted from top to bottom based on high to low relative abundance.
The number of transcripts within the membrane transport subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S3 The number of transcripts within the membrane transport subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community.
The number of transcripts within the iron acquisition and metabolism subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S4 The number of transcripts within the iron acquisition and metabolism subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community.
The number of transcripts within the phosphorus metabolism subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S5 The number of transcripts within the phosphorus metabolism subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community.
The number of transcripts within the nitrogen metabolism subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S6 The number of transcripts within the nitrogen metabolism subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community.
The number of transcripts within the carbohydrate metabolism subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S7 The number of transcripts within the carbohydrate metabolism subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community.
The number of transcripts within the stress response subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S8 The number of transcripts within the stress response subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community.
The number of transcripts within the virulence subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S9 The number of transcripts within the virulence subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community.
The number of transcripts within the respiration subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S10 The number of transcripts within the respiration subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community.
The number of transcripts within the motility and chemotaxis subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community
Supplemental Table S11 The number of transcripts within the motility and chemotaxis subsystem (level 3) of the bacterial community.
The number of transcripts within the SEED subsystems (level 1) of the archaeal community
Supplemental Table S12 The number of transcripts within the SEED subsystems (level 1) of the archaeal community.
The number of transcripts within the SEED subsystems of the viral community
Supplemental Table S13 The number of transcripts within the SEED subsystems (level 3) of the viral community.