Project: Microbial ecology of coexisting ecotypes: Are all Prochlorococcus equal?

Description from the NSF award abstract:
Prochlorococcus is a photosynthetic organism that is tremendously abundant in the ocean and influences biogeochemical cycles on global scales. This project aims to link Prochlorococcus community structure to primary productivity in situ. The twelve known Prochlorococcus ecotypes exhibit extensive diversity. It is thought that this diversity allows the Prochlorococcus "collective" to maintain numerical dominance across gradients in light, nutrients, and temperature that accompany changes in depth, season, and latitude. A large gap in our understanding lies in whether we should assess the ecosystem value of Prochlorococcus by its abundance or by its community structure or both. Ecosystem models assign all ecotypes the same role. However, genomic and physiological evidence from cultivated isolates and wild populations suggests tentatively that distinct genotypes may contribute differently to the ecosystem through variation in light and nutrient physiologies and interactions with other microorganisms. The consequences of these molecular-level differences to primary productivity in situ are unknown. This project tests whether absolute abundance, or community structure, determines the contributions of Prochlorococcus to biogeochemical dynamics by measuring the contributions of different ecotypes to primary productivity. The results of this project will inform ecosystem models towards better representation of how shifts in climate and Prochlorococcus diversity will affect global nutrient cycles, trophic cascades, and interactions with other bacteria, viruses, and grazers. The insights and approaches delineated by this work will be generally applicable to the ecology of abundant microbial populations in the open ocean such as pigmented and non-pigmented eukaryotes, heterotrophic bacteria, and other cyanobacterial lineages. A basic understanding of differences between coexisting ecotypes will provide inroads into understanding mechanisms of cooperation, competition, and collaboration among ecotypes in all microbial ecosystems. The investigators will build a teaching module to expose high school students to microbial oceanography, big data, and systems biology through virtual ocean exploration. The primary objective will be to impress upon students the importance of an "invisible forest" of microorganisms in the ocean. Students will examine the distribution patterns of abundant microbial groups in the context of oceanographic data from large publically available databases. High school teachers and student interns, a graduate student, the investigators, and an educational specialist will design, implement, and test the module for classrooms nationwide. This effort will follow a successful education model (Systems Education Experience - SEE) developed previously.

The investigators will address an overarching hypothesis that Prochlorococcus ecotypes vary in their contribution to the ecosystem as primary producers. More specifically, the investigators hypothesize that patterns of cell division and carbon fixation vary between coexisting ecotypes, and these differences are a function of genome content, gene expression, environmental conditions, and community composition. The technical approach will involve two field-based experiments will be applied to three different depths, at the oceanographic Station ALOHA, that differ in Prochlorococcus community composition. Experiment 1 will examine whether coexisting ecotypes vary in cell division, using 16S rRNA sequencing to quantify ecotype abundance in G1, S, and G2 cells. Experiment 2 will examine how carbon fixation varies between coexisting ecotypes using RNA-stable isotope probing and 16S rRNA sequencing of RNA enriched in 13C after incubation with 13C-bicarbonate. These experiments will be performed with Prochlorococcus communities under native in situ conditions and shifts in conditions to mimic light and temperature of other depths. In both experiments, the temporal gene expression of a selected set of carbon fixation and cell division genes will be examined to link gene expression patterns to primary productivity. All data will be related to the oceanographic environment including its physical, chemical, and biological features.