The global distribution and climate resilience of marine heterotrophic prokaryotes
- Author(s)
- Ryan F Heneghan, Jacinta Holloway-Brown, Josep M Gasol, Gerhard J Herndl, Xosé Anxelu G Morán, Eric D Galbraith
- Abstract
Heterotrophic Bacteria and Archaea (prokaryotes) are a major component of marine food webs and global biogeochemical cycles. Yet, there is limited understanding about how prokaryotes vary across global environmental gradients, and how their global abundance and metabolic activity (production and respiration) may be affected by climate change. Using global datasets of prokaryotic abundance, cell carbon and metabolic activity we reveal that mean prokaryotic biomass varies by just under 3-fold across the global surface ocean, while total prokaryotic metabolic activity increases by more than one order of magnitude from polar to tropical coastal and upwelling regions. Under climate change, global prokaryotic biomass in surface waters is projected to decline ~1.5% per °C of warming, while prokaryotic respiration will increase ~3.5% ( ~ 0.85 Pg C yr
-1). The rate of prokaryotic biomass decline is one-third that of zooplankton and fish, while the rate of increase in prokaryotic respiration is double. This suggests that future, warmer oceans could be increasingly dominated by prokaryotes, diverting a growing proportion of primary production into microbial food webs and away from higher trophic levels as well as reducing the capacity of the deep ocean to sequester carbon, all else being equal.
- Organisation(s)
- Functional and Evolutionary Ecology
- External organisation(s)
- Griffith University, University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland University of Technology, University of Adelaide, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona , McGill University
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Volume
- 15
- Pages
- 1-11
- No. of pages
- 11
- ISSN
- 2041-1723
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50635-z
- Publication date
- 08-2024
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 106021 Marine biology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Physics and Astronomy, General Chemistry, General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 14 - Life Below Water, SDG 13 - Climate Action
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/c8a11e44-e02e-447b-807f-623345dbd1b5