利用最近获得的从世界各地各种不同海洋环境中收集到的137个细菌菌株的基因组序列，再加上以前获得的基因组和元基因组数据，Kenneth Nealson及其同事得以能够了解在海洋表面生活的浮游生物群落的生态学的全貌。他们发现了两个微生物类别。
第一个类别包含很多微生物种类，它们的数量是难得的丰富，似乎适应了一种“随遇而安”的生活方式：在能量充足的环境中生长很快，而在食物缺乏时则生长很慢。第二个类别包含少数几种丰富的、普遍的浮游生物，它们通常总是数量很多。
这些基本上未培养的微生物基因组相对较小，可能是通过生长缓慢和维持较少生物质来避免被捕食。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐英文摘要：
Nature doi:10.1038/nature09530
Genomic and functional adaptation in surface ocean planktonic prokaryotes
Shibu Yooseph,Kenneth H. Nealson,knealson@usc.eduDouglas B. Rusch,John P. McCrow,Christopher L. Dupont,Maria Kim,Justin Johnson,Robert Montgomery,Steve Ferriera,Karen Beeson,Shannon J. Williamson,Andrey Tovchigrechko,Andrew E. Allen,Lisa A. Zeigler,Granger Sutton,Eric Eisenstadt,Yu-Hui Rogers,Robert Friedman,Marvin Frazier& J. Craig Venter
The understanding of marine microbial ecology and metabolism has been hampered by the paucity of sequenced reference genomes. To this end, we report the sequencing of 137 diverse marine isolates collected from around the world. We analysed these sequences, along with previously published marine prokaryotic genomes, in the context of marine metagenomic data, to gain insights into the ecology of the surface ocean prokaryotic picoplankton (0.1–3.0?μm size range). The results suggest that the sequenced genomes define two microbial groups: one composed of only a few taxa that are nearly always abundant in picoplanktonic communities, and the other consisting of many microbial taxa that are rarely abundant. The genomic content of the second group suggests that these microbes are capable of slow growth and survival in energy-limited environments, and rapid growth in energy-rich environments. By contrast, the abundant and cosmopolitan picoplanktonic prokaryotes for which there is genomic representation have smaller genomes, are probably capable of only slow growth and seem to be relatively unable to sense or rapidly acclimate to energy-rich conditions. Their genomic features also lead us to propose that one method used to avoid predation by viruses and/or bacterivores is by means of slow growth and the maintenance of low biomass.
