Interactions between primary producers and bacteria impact the physiology of both partners, alter the chemistry of their environment, and shape ecosystem diversity. In marine ecosystems, these interactions are difficult to study partly because the major photosynthetic organisms are microscopic, unicellular phytoplankton. Coastal phytoplankton communities are dominated by diatoms, which generate approximately 40% of marine primary production and form the base of many marine food webs. Diatoms co-occur with specific bacterial taxa, but the mechanisms of potential interactions are mostly unknown. Here we tease apart a bacterial consortium associated with a globally distributed diatom and find that a Sulfitobacter species promotes diatom cell division via secretion of the hormone indole-3-acetic acid, synthesized by the bacterium using both diatom-secreted and endogenous tryptophan. Indole-3-acetic acid and tryptophan serve as signalling molecules that are part of a complex exchange of nutrients, including diatom-excreted organosulfur molecules and bacterial-excreted ammonia. The potential prevalence of this mode of signalling in the oceans is corroborated by metabolite and metatranscriptome analyses that show widespread indole-3-acetic acid production by Sulfitobacter-related bacteria, particularly in coastal environments. Our study expands on the emerging recognition that marine microbial communities are part of tightly connected networks by providing evidence that these interactions are mediated through production and exchange of infochemicals.

Organisms within all domains of life require the cofactor cobalamin (vitamin B 12 ), which is produced only by a subset of bacteria and archaea. On the basis of genomic analyses, cobalamin biosynthesis in marine systems has been inferred in three main groups: select heterotrophic Proteobacteria, chemoautotrophic Thaumarchaeota, and photoautotrophic Cyanobacteria. Culture work demonstrates that many Cyanobacteria do not synthesize cobalamin but rather produce pseudocobalamin, challenging the connection between the occurrence of cobalamin biosynthesis genes and production of the compound in marine ecosystems. Here we show that cobalamin and pseudocobalamin coexist in the surface ocean, have distinct microbial sources, and support different enzymatic demands. Even in the presence of cobalamin, Cyanobacteria synthesize pseudocobalaminlikely reflecting their retention of an oxygen-independent pathway to produce pseudocobalamin, which is used as a cofactor in their specialized methionine synthase (MetH). This contrasts a model diatom, Thalassiosira pseudonana, which transported pseudocobalamin into the cell but was unable to use pseudocobalamin in its homolog of MetH. Our genomic and culture analyses showed that marine Thaumarchaeota and select heterotrophic bacteria produce cobalamin. This indicates that cobalamin in the surface ocean is a result of de novo synthesis by heterotrophic bacteria or via modification of closely related compounds like cyanobacterially produced pseudocobalamin. Deeper in the water column, our study implicates Thaumarchaeota as major producers of cobalamin based on genomic potential, cobalamin cell quotas, and abundance. Together, these findings establish the distinctive roles played by abundant prokaryotes in cobalamin-based microbial interdependencies that sustain community structure and function in the ocean. vitamin B 12 ) is synthesized by a select subset of bacteria and archaea, yet organisms across all domains of life require it (1-3). In the surface ocean, cobalamin auxotrophs (including most eukaryotic algae) (3) obtain the vitamin through direct interactions with cobalamin producers (3) or breakdown of cobalamin-containing cells (4,5). Interdependencies between marine cobalamin producers and consumers are critical in surface waters where primary productivity can be limited by the availability of cobalamin and the compound is short-lived (1, 6, 7). The exchange of cobalamin in return for organic compounds is hypothesized to underpin mutualistic interactions between heterotrophic bacteria and autotrophic algae (3,6,8,9). The apparent pervasiveness of cobalamin biosynthesis genes in chemoautotrophic Thaumarchaeota and photoautotrophic Cyanobacteria genomes (1, 10, 11) raises the question of whether cobalamin production by these autotrophs may underlie additional, unexplored microbial interactions.Cobalamin is a complex molecule with a central cobalt-containing corrin ring, an α ligand of 5,6-dimethylbenzimidizole (DMB), and a β ligand of either OH-, CN-, Me-, or Ado-(12) (Fig. 1). Pr...

No abstract

Nitrosopumilus maritimus gen. nov., sp. nov., Nitrosopumilus cobalaminigenes sp. nov., Nitrosopumilus oxyclinae sp. nov., and Nitrosopumilus ureiphilus sp. nov., four marine ammonia-oxidizing archaea of the phylum Thaumarchaeota