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Participants
PhD students
Summary
Our group develops and uses metagenomics algorithms and tools to analyse microbes collected from different environments. We use an environmental genomics approach which involves assembling genomes from DNA sequencing of environmental samples since many microbes are difficult to culture in the lab. Our most recent project involves analysing ocean microbes collected from the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic Ocean is a key regulator of global climate and its ecosystem houses some of the most productive food webs on the planet. Currently, the Arctic is the most impacted region from global warming because of summer sea-ice loss, snow melt and the retreat of glaciers. A foundational part of the Arctic Ocean ecosystem are marine microbes in sea ice and sea water, underpinning most of the Arctic food web and associated biogeochemical cycles. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand how Arctic Ocean microbial communities will respond to the current habitat transformations caused by warming. We aim to use metagenomics to help provide some to answers to this important problem.
Recently, the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) has radically expanded the amount of data available for the central Arctic Ocean. This year-round expedition used ‘RV Polarstern’ as a drifting research platform and was completed in October 2020, linking observations across the climate of the central Arctic Ocean with an estimated 10Tbps of sequence data from marine microbes. Microbes in Arctic sea ice and water underpin the ecosystem and play significant roles in climate feedback, yet it remains one of Earth’s most poorly understood biomes. The MOSAiC expedition provided coordinated measurements taken by an interdisciplinary group of 5 teams: atmosphere, snow and sea ice, oceanography, ecosystem and biogeochemistry teams. A full year (October 2019 to October 2020) was covered, providing first data from the highly inaccessible central Arctic Ocean in winter.
Microbial communities from both ice and water were sampled at multiple depths. The sequencing of these samples is being funded by the Joint Genome Institute (JGI, Department of Energy) and is co-led by Professor Mock in the School of Environmental Sciences, with whom we closely collaborate. From this expedition, we have access to ≥ 400 genomic and transcriptomic samples each from across the Arctic Ocean with linked physical (e.g., temperature, salinity, currents) and biogeochemical measurements (e.g., nutrients, CO2, carbon export). We are currently analysing this data with various international collaborators including scientists based in the MOSAiC consortium, The Earlham Institute, Ocean University China, and the Joint Genome Institute.
Funding
Mock, T. & Moulton, V., Natural Environment Research Council, 1/08/22 → 31/07/25
Partners
Publications
Dataset of 143 metagenome-assembled genomes from the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, including 21 for eukaryotic organisms,
Duncan, A., Barry, K., Daum, C., Eloe-Fadrosh, E., Roux, S., Schmidt, K., Tringe, S. G., Valentin, K. U., Varghese, N., Salamov, A., Grigoriev, I. V., Leggett, R. M., Moulton, V. & Mock, T., Apr 2023, In: Data in Brief. 47, 108990.
Genetic and structural diversity of prokaryotic ice-binding proteins from the central Arctic Ocean,
Winder, J. C., Boulton, W., Salamov, A., Eggers, S. L., Metfies, K., Moulton, V. & Mock, T., 30 Jan 2023, In: Genes. 14, 2, 363.
Metagenome-assembled genomes of phytoplankton microbiomes from the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans,
Duncan, A., Barry, K., Daum, C., Eloe-Fadrosh, E., Roux, S., Schmidt, K., Tringe, S. G., Valentin, K. U., Varghese, N., Salamov, A., Grigoriev, I. V., Leggett, R. M., Moulton, V. & Mock, T., 28 Apr 2022, In: Microbiome. 10, 67.
Multiomics in the central Arctic Ocean for benchmarking biodiversity change,
Mock, T., Boulton, W., Balmonte, J. P., Barry, K., Bertilsson, S., Bowman, J., Buck, M., Bratbak, G., Chamberlain, E. J., Cunliffe, M., Creamean, J., Ebenhöh, O., Eggers, S. L., Fong, A. A., Gardner, J., Gradinger, R., Granskog, M. A., Havermans, C., Hill, T., Hoppe, C. J. M. & 37 others, , 17 Oct 2022, In: PLoS Biology. 20, 10, e3001835.