Determinants of community structure in the global plankton interactome

Lima-Mendez, Gipsi ... et. al.-- 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, supplementary materials www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6237/1262073/suppl/DC1
Species interaction networks are shaped by abiotic and biotic factors. Here, as part of the Tara Oceans project, we studied the photic zone interactome using environmental factors and organismal abundance profiles and found that environmental factors are incomplete predictors of community structure. We found associations across plankton functional types and phylogenetic groups to be nonrandomly distributed on the network and driven by both local and global patterns. We identified interactions among grazers, primary producers, viruses, and (mainly parasitic) symbionts and validated networkgenerated hypotheses using microscopy to confirm symbiotic relationships. We have thus provided a resource to support further research on ocean food webs and integrating biological components into ocean models. © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved
We thank the commitment of the following people and sponsors:Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) (in particular, Groupement de Recherche GDR3280), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Genoscope/CEA, VIB, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, UNIMIB, Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (G.L.M., K.F., S.C., and J.R.), Rega Institute (J.R.), KU Leuven(J.R.), The French Ministry of Research, the French Government “Investissements d’Avenir” programmes OCEANOMICS (ANR-11-BTBR-0008), FRANCE GENOMIQUE (ANR-10-INBS-09-08), MEMO LIFE (ANR-10-LABX-54), PSL* Research University (ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02), ANR (projects POSEIDON/ANR-09-BLAN-0348, PHYTBACK/ANR-2010-1709-01, PROMETHEUS/ANR-09-PCSGENM- 217, TARA GIRUS/ANR-09-PCS-GENM-218, European Union FP7 (MicroB3/No.287589, IHMS/HEALTH-F4-2010-261376, ERC Advanced Grant Awards to CB (Diatomite: 294823), Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant (3790) to M.B.S., Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation grant CGL2011-26848/BOS MicroOcean PANGENOMICS to S.G.A., TANIT (CONES 2010-0036) from the Agència de Gestió d´Ajusts Universitaris i Reserca funded to S.G.A., JSPS KAKENHI grant number 26430184 to H.O., FWO, BIO5, Biosphere 2, Agnès b., the Veolia Environment Foundation, Region Bretagne, Lorient Agglomeration, World Courier, Illumina, the EDF Foundation, FRB, the Prince Albert II de Monaco Foundation, Etienne Bourgois, the Tara schooner, and its captain and crew. We are also grateful to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for supporting the expedition and to the countries that graciously granted sampling permissions. Tara Oceans would not exist without continuous support from 23 institutes (http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org)