Global Patterns of Bacterial Beta-Diversity in Seafloor and Seawater Ecosystems

BACKGROUND: Marine microbial communities have been essential contributors to global biomass, nutrient cycling, and biodiversity since the early history of Earth, but so far their community distribution patterns remain unknown in most marine ecosystems. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The synthesis of 9.6 million bacterial V6-rRNA amplicons for 509 samples that span the global ocean's surface to the deep-sea floor shows that pelagic and benthic communities greatly differ, at all taxonomic levels, and share

• DF
  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
• M
  Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
• L
  Leibniz-Gemeinschaft