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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Sam Wilson
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© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. Complex assemblages of microbes in the surface ocean are responsible for approximately half of global carbon fixation. The persistence of high taxonomic diversity despite competition for a small suite of relatively homogeneously distributed nutrients, that is, ‘the paradox of the plankton’, represents a long-standing challenge for ecological theory. Here we find evidence consistent with temporal niche partitioning of nitrogen assimilation processes over a diel cycle in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. We jointly analysed transcript abundances, lipids and metabolites and discovered that a small number of diel archetypes can explain pervasive periodic dynamics. Metabolic pathway analysis of identified diel signals revealed asynchronous timing in the transcription of nitrogen uptake and assimilation genes among different microbial groups—cyanobacteria, heterotrophic bacteria and eukaryotes. This temporal niche partitioning of nitrogen uptake emerged despite synchronous transcription of photosynthesis and central carbon metabolism genes and associated macromolecular abundances. Temporal niche partitioning may be a mechanism by which microorganisms in the open ocean mitigate competition for scarce resources, supporting community coexistence.
Author(s): Muratore D, Boysen AK, Harke MJ, Becker KW, Casey JR, Coesel SN, Mende DR, Wilson ST, Aylward FO, Eppley JM, Vislova A, Peng S, Rodriguez-Gonzalez RA, Beckett SJ, Virginia Armbrust E, DeLong EF, Karl DM, White AE, Zehr JP, Van Mooy BAS, Dyhrman ST, Ingalls AE, Weitz JS
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Nature Ecology and Evolution
Year: 2022
Volume: 6
Issue: 2
Pages: 218-229
Print publication date: 01/02/2022
Online publication date: 20/01/2022
Acceptance date: 01/11/2021
ISSN (electronic): 2397-334X
Publisher: Nature Research
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01606-w
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-021-01606-w
PubMed id: 35058612
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