Microbes' Genetic Makeup Varies With Ocean Depths

Similar communities of microscopic marine organisms live together in stacked horizontal layers within the world's oceans, according to a new study.

The image above shows microbial plankton that has had their DNA dyed to glow in fluorescent light.

Researchers analyzed cores from drillings that bore down to depths of 4,000 meters in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. They found that microbial communities were arranged in vertical zones. Each zone contained ocean microbes with similar genetic and metabolic pathways. The differences between zones involved cellular maintenance, energy and nutrition absorption, attachment and motility, genetic exchange and host-viral interactions.

The study, led by Edward DeLong at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, was detailed in the Jan. 27 issue of the journal Science.