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Microbial metabolites in the marine carbon cycle

Nature Microbiology volume 7, pages 508–523 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

One-quarter of photosynthesis-derived carbon on Earth rapidly cycles through a set of short-lived seawater metabolites that are generated from the activities of marine phytoplankton, bacteria, grazers and viruses. Here we discuss the sources of microbial metabolites in the surface ocean, their roles in ecology and biogeochemistry, and approaches that can be used to analyse them from chemistry, biology, modelling and data science. Although microbial-derived metabolites account for only a minor fraction of the total reservoir of marine dissolved organic carbon, their flux and fate underpins the central role of the ocean in sustaining life on Earth.

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Fig. 1: Microbial metabolites drive the carbon cycle in the surface ocean.
Fig. 2: Sources of the labile microbial metabolites in the surface ocean.
Fig. 3: Diel synchrony in microbial synthesis, release and utilization of metabolites.
Fig. 4: The marine DOC spectrum.

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Acknowledgements

This Review arose from discussions supported by the CIFAR and developed further with support from the Moore Foundation (5503 to M.A.M., E.B.K. and A.S.E.; 9335 to S.A.A.), the Simons Foundation (542391 to M.A.M.; 253417 to E.B.K.; 504183 to E.M.B.; 509034SCFY20 to R.B.; 721225 to S.T.D.; 687269 to A.M.E.; 542389 to N.M.L.; 345889 to A.E.S.; and 735079 to A.V.), the US NSF (OCE-1756105 to N.R.B.; Major Research Equipment DBI-1946970 to A.S.E.; OCE-1924554 to M.A.S.; CAREER DEB-1749544 to A.S.; OCE-BSF 1635070 to DS.; and OCE-1829831 to M.B.S.), the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation (to S.T.D.), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2019-06159 to L.L.; RGPIN-2015-06078 to A.C.R.). This is NSF Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet (C-CoMP) publication number 001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Mary Ann Moran, William F. Schroer & Mak A. Saito

  2. Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Elizabeth B. Kujawinski

  3. Division of Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Shady A. Amin

  4. Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, St George’s, Bermuda

    Nicholas R. Bates

  5. School of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Nicholas R. Bates

  6. Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

    Erin M. Bertrand

  7. Departments of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Rogier Braakman

  8. Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    C. Titus Brown

  9. Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Markus W. Covert

  10. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Scott C. Doney

  11. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA

    Sonya T. Dyhrman

  12. Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA

    Sonya T. Dyhrman

  13. Departments of Biochemistry and Genetics, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Arthur S. Edison

  14. Josephine Bay Paul Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    A. Murat Eren

  15. Helmholtz-Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB), University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    A. Murat Eren

  16. Marine and Environmental Biology, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Naomi M. Levine

  17. Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Liang Li

  18. Department of Chemistry, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    Avena C. Ross

  19. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Alyson E. Santoro

  20. Department of Biology and Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Daniel Segrè

  21. Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Ashley Shade

  22. Departments of Microbiology and Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering, and Center of Microbiome Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Matthew B. Sullivan

  23. Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Assaf Vardi

Authors
  1. Mary Ann Moran
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  2. Elizabeth B. Kujawinski
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Contributions

All authors contributed ideas. M.A.M., E.B.K. and W.F.S. wrote the manuscript with substantial input from all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Mary Ann Moran or Elizabeth B. Kujawinski.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Microbiology thanks Pieter Dorrestein, Manuel Liebeke and Bethanie Edwards for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Moran, M.A., Kujawinski, E.B., Schroer, W.F. et al. Microbial metabolites in the marine carbon cycle. Nat Microbiol 7, 508–523 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01090-3

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