Ass. Prof. A. MU­RAT EREN: Teasing apart evo­lu­tio­na­ry pro­ces­ses that shape SAR11 bio­geo­gra­phy

Abstract

The as­to­nis­hing di­ver­si­ty of SAR11 in ma­ri­ne ha­bi­tats chal­len­ges not only emer­ging ope­ra­tio­nal boun­da­ries de­fi­ned for mi­cro­bi­al 'spe­cies' but also sta­te-of-the-art stra­te­gies to stu­dy mi­cro­bi­al po­pu­la­ti­on ge­ne­tics. With its ubi­qui­ty in sur­face sea­wa­ter sam­ples, ex­ten­si­ve di­ver­si­ty in se­quence space, and uni­que evo­lu­tio­na­ry his­to­ry, SAR11 is one of the most ex­cit­ing puz­zles of con­tem­pora­ry mi­cro­bio­lo­gy. In this se­mi­nar I will de­scri­be our re­cent at­tempts to in­te­gra­te mul­ti­ple 'o­mics stra­te­gies and ana­ly­ti­cal ap­proa­ches to take a de­eper look into the eco­lo­gi­cal and evo­lu­tio­na­ry forces that main­tain the ge­no­mic he­te­ro­gen­ei­ty of cos­mo­po­li­tan mi­cro­bi­al po­pu­la­ti­ons. Whi­le our fin­dings sug­gest en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly-me­dia­ted selec­tion as the main dri­ver of SAR11 di­ver­si­ty and bio­geo­gra­phy, the new ap­proa­ches that emer­ge from our in­ves­ti­ga­ti­on, such as map­ping en­vi­ron­men­tal ge­ne­tic he­te­ro­gen­ei­ty to pre­dic­ted pro­te­in struc­tu­res, brings us clo­ser to un­der­stan­ding de­ter­mi­nants of fit­ness at re­so­lu­ti­ons that mat­ter.