Microbial metabolites in the marine carbon cycle

Mary Ann Moran; Elizabeth B Kujawinski; William F Schroer; Shady A Amin; Nicholas R Bates; Erin M Bertrand; Rogier Braakman; C Titus Brown; Markus W Covert; Scott C Doney; Sonya T Dyhrman; Arthur S Edison; A Murat Eren; Naomi M Levine; Liang Li; Avena C Ross; Mak A Saito; Alyson E Santoro; Daniel Segrè; Ashley Shade; Matthew B Sullivan; Assaf Vardi

doi:10.1038/s41564-022-01090-3

Microbial metabolites in the marine carbon cycle

Nat Microbiol. 2022 Apr;7(4):508-523. doi: 10.1038/s41564-022-01090-3. Epub 2022 Apr 1.

Authors

Mary Ann Moran¹, Elizabeth B Kujawinski², William F Schroer³, Shady A Amin⁴, Nicholas R Bates^{5

6}, Erin M Bertrand⁷, Rogier Braakman⁸, C Titus Brown⁹, Markus W Covert¹⁰, Scott C Doney¹¹, Sonya T Dyhrman^{12

13}, Arthur S Edison¹⁴, A Murat Eren^{15

16}, Naomi M Levine¹⁷, Liang Li¹⁸, Avena C Ross¹⁹, Mak A Saito³, Alyson E Santoro²⁰, Daniel Segrè²¹, Ashley Shade²², Matthew B Sullivan²³, Assaf Vardi²⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Marine Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. mmoran@uga.edu.
² Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA. ekujawinski@whoi.edu.
³ Department of Marine Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
⁴ Division of Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
⁵ Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, St George's, Bermuda.
⁶ School of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
⁷ Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
⁸ Departments of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁹ Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹¹ Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
¹² Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA.
¹³ Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA.
¹⁴ Departments of Biochemistry and Genetics, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
¹⁵ Josephine Bay Paul Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, USA.
¹⁶ Helmholtz-Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB), University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
¹⁷ Marine and Environmental Biology, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹⁸ Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
¹⁹ Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
²⁰ Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
²¹ Department of Biology and Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
²² Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
²³ Departments of Microbiology and Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering, and Center of Microbiome Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
²⁴ Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.

PMID: 35365785
DOI: 10.1038/s41564-022-01090-3

Abstract

One-quarter of photosynthesis-derived carbon on Earth rapidly cycles through a set of short-lived seawater metabolites that are generated from the activities of marine phytoplankton, bacteria, grazers and viruses. Here we discuss the sources of microbial metabolites in the surface ocean, their roles in ecology and biogeochemistry, and approaches that can be used to analyse them from chemistry, biology, modelling and data science. Although microbial-derived metabolites account for only a minor fraction of the total reservoir of marine dissolved organic carbon, their flux and fate underpins the central role of the ocean in sustaining life on Earth.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Bacteria / metabolism
Carbon / metabolism
Carbon Cycle*
Phytoplankton / metabolism
Seawater* / microbiology

Substances

Carbon