Bacterial community assembly based on functional genes rather than species
Bacterial community assembly based on functional genes rather than species
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1101591108
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发表时间：
2011-08-23
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Thomas, Torsten
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Burke, Catherine;Steinberg, Peter;Thomas, Torsten
复杂微生物群落的组装和结构的基本原理是微生物生态学领域长期关注的问题。我们以前分析了社区成员的细菌群落与绿色的大型藻类石莼australis，并提出了一个竞争性的彩票模型的藻类表面的殖民化，试图解释令人惊讶的缺乏相似性的物种组成在不同的藻类样品。在这里，我们扩展了以前的研究，调查社区结构和功能之间的联系，在这些社区，使用宏基因组序列分析。尽管美国不同地区的微生物物种组成具有很高的系统发育变异性。australis（样品之间只有15%的相似性），功能组成的相似性很高（70%），并且鉴定了存在于所有藻类相关群落中的功能基因的核心，其与表面和宿主相关细菌的生态学一致。这些功能广泛分布在各种类群或系统发育组。这一观察的相似性在栖息地（生态位）的使用方面的功能基因，而不是物种，以及相对容易的细菌共享遗传物质，表明，在其中解决的组装和结构的细菌群落的关键水平可能不是“物种”（通过rRNA分类），而是更多的功能水平的基因。
The principles underlying the assembly and structure of complex microbial communities are an issue of long-standing concern to the field of microbial ecology. We previously analyzed the community membership of bacterial communities associated with the green macroalga Ulva australis, and proposed a competitive lottery model for colonization of the algal surface in an attempt to explain the surprising lack of similarity in species composition across different algal samples. Here we extend the previous study by investigating the link between community structure and function in these communities, using metagenomic sequence analysis. Despite the high phylogenetic variability in microbial species composition on different U. australis (only 15% similarity between samples), similarity in functional composition was high (70%), and a core of functional genes present across all algal-associated communities was identified that were consistent with the ecology of surface-and host-associated bacteria. These functions were distributed widely across a variety of taxa or phylogenetic groups. This observation of similarity in habitat (niche) use with respect to functional genes, but not species, together with the relative ease with which bacteria share genetic material, suggests that the key level at which to address the assembly and structure of bacterial communities may not be "species" (by means of rRNA taxonomy), but rather the more functional level of genes.