SAR11 clade dominates ocean surface bacterioplankton communities
Abstract
The most abundant class of bacterial ribosomal RNA genes detected in seawater DNA by gene cloning belongs to SAR11-an alpha-proteobacterial clade. Other than indications of their prevalence in seawater, little is known about these organisms. Here we report quantitative measurements of the cellular abundance of the SAR11 clade in northwestern Sargasso Sea waters to 3,000 m and in Oregon coastal surface waters. On average, the SAR11 clade accounts for a third of the cells present in surface waters and nearly a fifth of the cells present in the mesopelagic zone. In some regions, members of the SAR11 clade represent as much as 50% of the total surface microbial community and 25% of the subeuphotic microbial community. By extrapolation, we estimate that globally there are 2.4 x 10(28) SAR11 cells in the oceans, half of which are located in the euphotic zone. Although the biogeochemical role of the SAR11 clade remains uncertain, these data support the conclusion that this microbial group is among the most successful organisms on Earth.
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The microorganisms that were more represented in the water samples were completely different and belonged to very common marine groups (HIMB11, SAR11, AEGEAN).
“Indeed, the microorganisms that were more represented in the water samples were completely different and belonged to very common marine groups (HIMB11, SAR11, AEGEAN) (Morris et al., 2002; Durham et al., 2014; Cram et al., 2015).”
From Potential lineage transmission within the active microbiota of the eggs and the nauplii of the shrimp <i>Litopenaeus stylirostris</i> : possible influence of the rearing water and more (2021) · cites this paper as Morris et al., 2002
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- Authors
- Morris, R. M., Rappé, M. S., Connon, S. A., Vergin, K. L., Siebold, W. A., Carlson, C. A., & Giovannoni, S. J.
- Affiliations
- Oregon State University (US)
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- Corresponding author
- Giovannoni, Stephen J.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2002-12
- Volume
- 420
- Issue
- 6917
- Pages
- 806-810
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2001447987
- Cited by
- 1,129
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 40 · 2023: 55 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 63 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 58 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 50 · 2016: 68 · 2015: 62 · 2014: 55 · 2013: 66 · 2012: 68
- FWCI
- 22.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
- Oregon State University
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Marine and coastal ecosystems
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protist diversity and phylogeny
- Keywords
- SAR11 clade, Alphaproteobacteria, bacterioplankton, marine bacteria, bacterial abundance, Sargasso Sea, mesopelagic zone, euphotic zone, microbial community composition, ribosomal DNA, gene cloning
- MeSH terms
- Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, RNA, Bacterial, RNA, Ribosomal, 16S, Seawater, Colony Count, Microbial, In Situ Hybridization, In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence, Biomass, Alphaproteobacteria
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