mSystems (Jun 2021)

Marine Community Metabolomes Carry Fingerprints of Phytoplankton Community Composition

  • Katherine R. Heal,
  • Bryndan P. Durham,
  • Angela K. Boysen,
  • Laura T. Carlson,
  • Wei Qin,
  • François Ribalet,
  • Angelicque E. White,
  • Randelle M. Bundy,
  • E. Virginia Armbrust,
  • Anitra E. Ingalls

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.01334-20
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 3

Abstract

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Microscopic phytoplankton transform 100 million tons of inorganic carbon into thousands of different organic compounds each day. The structure of each chemical is critical to its biological and ecosystem function, yet the diversity of biomolecules produced by marine microbial communities remained mainly unexplored, especially small polar molecules which are often considered the currency of the microbial loop.