Ignorantly ignoring bacterial biofilms

TARA oceans provided cutting edge open ocean (OO) microbial diversity data but ignores microbial biofilm diversity. To identify currently undetected members of the ocean microbiome and decipher their putative functions, Zhang et al. stimulated biofilm growth on artificial substrates at globally distributed locations and compared the 16S rRNA within the metagenomes of these to TARA OO metagenomes. Using artificial surfaces seems peculiar as these are unnatural in the ocean, and their justification for using these seems unclear. Despite this, they still identify a huge 6411 abundant biofilm specific OTUs (mostly bacteria), independent in taxonomy, and potentially their function, to OO OTUs. Conserved functional cores were apparent across all biofilms, potentially illustrating coordination of stress responses and microbe-microbe interactions. It would be interesting to investigate this further- do they play a role in functions such as quorum sensing or nutrient/vitamin provisioning?

 Generally, results highlight the importance of studying microbial communities of habitats aside from those in the OO. This is highlighted by a 20% increase in known microbial diversity resultant from this study alone. This will allow the creation of a genomic database far larger than previously considered, and really enhance our understanding of microbial life and diversity in all ocean habitats.



Zhang, W., Ding, W., Li, Y. X., Tam, C., Bougouffa, S., Wang, R., ... & Sun, J. (2019). Marine biofilms constitute a bank of hidden microbial diversity and functional potential. Nature communications, 10(1), 517.