Biology subjects

Nef, C.

Publications and source records attributed to Nef, C..

8 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Patterns and drivers of diatom diversity and abundance in the global ocean

Diatoms constitute one of the most diverse and ecologically important phytoplankton groups, yet their large-scale diversity patterns and drivers of abundance are unclear due to limited observations. Here, we utilize Tara Oceans molecular and morphological data, spanning pole to pole, to describe marine diatom diversity, abundance, and environmental adaptation and acclimation strategies. The dominance of diatoms among phytoplankton in terms of relative abundance and diversity was confirmed, and the most prevalent genera were Chaetoceros, Thalassiosira, Actinocyclus and Pseudo-nitzschia. We defined 25 distinct diatom communities with varying environmental preferences illustrative of different life strategies. The Arctic Ocean stands out as a diatom hotspot with 6 of the diatom communities being exclusive to it. Light harvesting and photoprotection were among the cellular functions in which natural diatom populations invested the bulk of their transcriptional efforts. This comprehensive study sheds light on marine diatom distributions, offering insights to assess impacts of global change and oceanic anthropogenic impacts.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Genome-scale community modelling reveals conserved metabolic cross-feedings in epipelagic bacterioplankton communities

Marine microorganisms form complex communities of interacting organisms that influence central ecosystem functions in the ocean such as primary production and nutrient cycling. Identifying the mechanisms controlling their assembly and activities is a major challenge in microbial ecology. Here, we integrated Tara Oceans meta-omics data to predict genome-scale community interactions within prokaryotic assemblages in the euphotic ocean. A global genome-resolved co-activity network revealed a significant number of inter-lineage associations across large phylogenetic distances. Identified co-active communities included species displaying smaller genomes but encoding a higher potential for quorum sensing, biofilm formation, and secondary metabolism. Community metabolic modelling revealed a higher potential for interaction within co-active communities and pointed towards conserved metabolic cross-feedings, in particular of specific amino acids and group B vitamins. Our integrated ecological and metabolic modelling approach indicates genome streamlining and metabolic auxotrophies as central joint mechanisms shaping bacterioplankton community assembly in the surface global ocean.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Presence of vitamin B12 metabolism in the last common ancestor of land plants

Vitamin B12, or cobalamin, (hereinafter B12) is an essential organic micronutrient, required by humans as a cofactor for methionine synthase (METH) and for methylmalonyl CoA mutase (MCM), involved in the propionate shunt. B12 is a complex corrinoid molecule made only by a subset of bacteria. Plants and fungi have an alternative methionine synthase (METE) that does not need a B12 cofactor, so these organisms are typically considered to neither synthesise nor utilise B12. In contrast many algal species utilise B12 if it is available, because they encode both METE and METH. Moreover, a large proportion of algal species encode METH only, and so are like animals in being dependent on an external source of the vitamin. Here, we performed a detailed phylogenetic analysis of the distribution of METE, METH and eleven further proteins implicated in B12 metabolism in eukaryotic cells across an exhaustive library of over 1,500 plant and algal genomes and transcriptomes. The results reveal the hitherto undetected existence of B12-associated metabolism deep into the streptophytes. The B12-dependent synthase METH, and the accessory proteins MTRR, CblB, CblC, CblD and CblJ were detected in the basally divergent plant lineage of hornworts, and CblB and CblJ were further identified in liverworts. Using phylogenetic and PFAM analysis we demonstrate this is due to retention of ancestral B12-metabolism pathways in the last common ancestor of land plants, followed by at least two independent complete losses in mosses and vascular plants. We further show more limited distributions of genes encoding B12-related proteins across the algal tree of life, including MCM and type II ribonucleotide reductase, alongside an obligate B12-dependency across several major marine algal orders. Finally, by considering the functional biology of early-diverging land plants, together with the collection sites of ten further algal species inferred to have lost B12-dependent metabolism, we propose freshwater-to-land transitions and symbiotic associations to have been major constraining factors in B12 availability in early plant evolution.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Divergent and diversified proteome content across a serially acquired plastid lineage

Dinoflagellates are a diverse group of ecologically significant micro-eukaryotes, prone to the loss and replacement of their plastids via serial endosymbiosis. One such replacement took place in the ancestors of the Kareniaceae, which harbor haptophyte-derived plastids containing the pigment fucoxanthin, instead of the ancestral peridinin dinoflagellate plastid. The metabolic functions of the fucoxanthin plastid are performed by a diverse range of nucleus-encoded and plastid-targeted proteins, which may originate from the haptophyte ancestor of the fucoxanthin plastid, the peridinin-containing ancestor of the dinoflagellate host, and/or from lateral gene transfers. However, the evolutionary composition of fucoxanthin plastid proteomes across the diversity of kareniacean dinoflagellates remains poorly understood. Here, we determine the total composition of the plastid proteomes of seven distantly-related kareniacean dinoflagellates, including newly-sequenced members of three genera (Karenia, Karlodinium, and Takayama). Using a custom plastid-targeting predictor, automatic single-gene tree building and phylogenetic sorting of plastid-targeted proteins, we project relatively limited (~10%) and functionally distinctive contributions of the haptophyte endosymbiont to the fucoxanthin plastid proteome, in comparison to plastid-targeted proteins of dinoflagellate host origin. Considering a concatenated multigene phylogeny of haptophyte-derived plastid proteins, we show that the haptophyte order Chrysochromulinales is the closest living relative of the fucoxanthin plastid donor. We additionally perform detailed analyses of the N-terminal targeting sequences of kareniacean plastid signal peptides, reporting a surprisingly high sequence conservation. Finally, considering planetary-scale distributions of key kareniacean genera and haptophyte orders from Tara Oceans, we suggest ecological and mechanistic factors accompanying the endosymbiotic acquisition of the fucoxanthin plastid.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2022

Whole-genome scanning reveals selection mechanisms in epipelagic Chaetoceros diatom populations

Diatoms form a diverse and abundant group of photosynthetic protists that are essential players in marine ecosystems. However, the microevolutionary structure of their populations remains poorly understood, particularly in polar regions. Exploring how closely related diatoms adapt to different oceanic ecoregions is essential given their short generation times, which may allow rapid adaptations to different environments; and their prevalence in marine regions dramatically impacted by climate change, such as the Arctic and Southern Oceans. Here, we address genetic diversity patterns in Chaetoceros, the most abundant diatom genus and one of the most diverse, using 11 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) reconstructed from Tara Oceans metagenomes. Genome-resolved metagenomics on these MAGs confirmed a prevalent distribution of Chaetoceros in the Arctic Ocean with lower dispersal in the Pacific and Southern Oceans as well as in the Mediterranean Sea. Single nucleotide variants identified within the different MAG populations allowed us to draw a first landscape of Chaetoceros genetic diversity and to reveal an elevated genetic structure in some Arctic Ocean populations with FST levels ranging up to [≥] 0.2. Genetic differentiation patterns of closely related Chaetoceros populations appear to be correlated with abiotic factors rather than with geographic distance. We found clear positive selection of genes involved in nutrient availability responses, in particular for iron (e.g., ISIP2a, flavodoxin), silicate and phosphate (e.g., polyamine synthase), that were further confirmed in Chaetoceros transcriptomes. Altogether, these results provide new insights and perspectives into diatom metapopulation genomics through the integration of metagenomic and environmental data.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Within-Arctic horizontal gene transfer as a driver of convergent evolution in distantly related microalgae

The Arctic Ocean is being impacted by warming temperatures, increasing freshwater and highly variable ice conditions. The microalgal communities underpinning Arctic marine food webs, once thought to be dominated by diatoms, include a phylogenetically diverse range of small algal species, whose biology remains poorly understood. Here, we present genome sequences of a cryptomonad, a haptophyte, a chrysophyte, and a pelagophyte, isolated from the Arctic water column and ice. Comparing protein family distributions and sequence similarity across a densely-sampled set of algal genomes and transcriptomes, we note striking convergences in the biology of distantly related small Arctic algae, compared to non-Arctic relatives; although this convergence is largely exclusive of Arctic diatoms. Using high-throughput phylogenetic approaches, incorporating environmental sequence data from Tara Oceans, we demonstrate that this convergence was partly explained by horizontal gene transfers (HGT) between Arctic species, in over at least 30 other discrete gene families, and most notably in ice-binding domains (IBD). These Arctic-specific genes have been repeatedly transferred between Arctic algae, and are independent of equivalent HGTs in the Antarctic Southern Ocean. Our data provide insights into the specialized Arctic marine microbiome, and underlines the role of geographically-limited HGT as a driver of environmental adaptation in eukaryotic algae.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Environmental vulnerability of the global ocean plankton community interactome

Marine plankton form complex communities of interacting organisms at the base of the food web, which sustain oceanic biogeochemical cycles, and help regulate climate. Though global surveys are starting to reveal ecological drivers underlying planktonic community structure, and predicted climate change responses, it is unclear how community-scale species interactions will be affected by climate change. Here we leveraged Tara Oceans sampling to infer a global ocean cross-domain plankton co-occurrence network - the community interactome - and used niche modeling to assess its vulnerabilities to environmental change. Globally, this revealed a plankton interactome self-organized latitudinally into marine biomes (Trades, Westerlies, Polar), and more connected poleward. Integrated niche modeling revealed biome-specific community interactome responses to environmental change, and forecasted most affected lineages for each community. These results provide baseline approaches to assess community structure and organismal interactions under climate scenarios, while identifying plausible plankton bioindicators for ocean monitoring of climate change.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Mitotic interhomolog recombination drives genomic diversity in diatoms

Diatoms, an evolutionarily successful group of microalgae, display high levels of intraspecific variability in natural populations. However, the process generating such diversity is unknown. Here we estimated the variability within a natural diatom population and subsequently mapped the genomic changes arising within cultures clonally propagated from single diatom cells. We demonstrate that genome rearrangements and mitotic recombination between homologous chromosomes underlie clonal variability, resulting in haplotype diversity accompanied by the appearance of novel protein variants and loss of heterozygosity resulting in the fixation of alleles. The frequency of interhomolog mitotic recombination exceeds 4 out of 100 cell divisions and increases under environmental stress. We propose that this plastic response in the interhomolog mitotic recombination rate increases the evolutionary potential of diatoms, contributing to their ecological success. One Sentence SummaryRecombination between homologous chromosomes in diatom vegetative cells leads to extensive genomic diversity in clonal populations.

genomics↗