Quantitative phylogenetic assessment of microbial communities in diverse environments

作者：Christian von Mering, Philip Hugenholtz, Jeroen Raes, Susannah G. Tringe, Tobias Doerks, Lars Juhl Jensen, Naomi Ward, Peer Bork · 发表于：University of North Texas Digital Library (University of North Texas) · 年份：2007 · DOI：10.1126/science.1133420 · 被引用次数：360 · 研究领域：Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology、Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies、Gut microbiota and health

The taxonomic composition of environmental communities is an important indicator of their ecology and function. We used a set of protein-coding marker genes, extracted from large-scale environmental shotgun sequencing data, to provide a more direct, quantitative, and accurate picture of community composition than that provided by traditional ribosomal RNA-based approaches depending on the polymerase chain reaction. Mapping marker genes from four diverse environmental data sets onto a reference species phylogeny shows that certain communities evolve faster than others. The method also enables determination of preferred habitats for entire microbial clades and provides evidence that such habitat preferences are often remarkably stable over time.