Chemotaxonomic patterns in intracellular metabolites of marine microbial plankton

Abstract

Most biological diversity on Earth is contained within microbial communities. In the ocean, these communities dominate processes related to carbon fixation and nutrient recycling. Yet, specific factors that determine community composition and metabolic activity are difficult to resolve in complex microbial populations, complicating predictions of microbial processes in a changing ocean. Microbial metabolism generates small organic molecules that reflect both the biochemical and physiological diversity as well as the taxonomic specificity of these biological processes. These small molecules serve as the conduit for taxon-specific signaling and exchange. Here, we use liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based metabolomics to taxonomically categorize 111 metabolites that include small molecules in central and secondary metabolism across 42 taxa representing numerically dominant and metabolically important lineages of microbial autotrophs and heterotrophs. Patterns in metabolite presence-absence broadly reflected taxonomic lineages. A subset of metabolites that includes osmolytes, sulfur-containing metabolites, sugars, and amino acid derivatives provided chemotaxonomic information among phytoplankton taxa. A variety of phytohormones and signaling molecules were predominantly found in the heterotrophic bacteria and archaea, expanding knowledge of metabolites implicated in modulating interactions between microbes. This chemotaxonomic inventory of marine microbial metabolites is a key step in deciphering metabolic networks that influence ocean biogeochemical cycles.