Table_2_Phototrophic Co-cultures From Extreme Environments: Community Structure and Potential Value for Fundamental and Applied Research.xlsx

Cyanobacteria are found in most illuminated environments and are key players in global carbon and nitrogen cycling. Although significant efforts have been made to advance our understanding of this important phylum, still little is known about how members of the cyanobacteria affect and respond to changes in complex biological systems. This lack of knowledge is in part due to our dependence on pure cultures when determining the metabolism and function of a microorganism. We took advantage of the Culture Collection of Microorganisms from Extreme Environments (CCMEE), a collection of more than 1,000 publicly available photosynthetic co-cultures maintained at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and assessed via 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing if samples readily available from public culture collection could be used in the future to generate new insights into the role of microbial communities in global and local carbon and nitrogen cycling. Results from this work support the existing notion that culture depositories in general hold the potential to advance fundamental and applied research. Although it remains to be seen if co-cultures can be used at large scale to infer roles of individual organisms, samples that are publicly available from existing co-cultures depositories, such as the CCMEE, might be an economical starting point for such studies. Access to archived biological samples, without the need for costly field work, might in some circumstances be one of the few remaining ways to advance the field and to generate new insights into the biology of ecosystems that are not easily accessible. The current COVID-19 pandemic, which makes sampling expeditions almost impossible without putting the health of the participating scientists on the line, is a very timely example.

蓝细菌（Cyanobacteria）广泛分布于多数光照环境中，是全球碳、氮循环的关键类群。尽管学界已付出诸多努力以深化对这一重要门类的认知，但目前人们对蓝细菌成员如何影响及响应复杂生物系统的变化仍知之甚少。这种认知缺口在一定程度上源于我们在解析微生物代谢与功能时，过度依赖纯培养体系。本研究借助美国太平洋西北国家实验室维护的极端环境微生物培养物保藏库（Culture Collection of Microorganisms from Extreme Environments, CCMEE）——该库收录1000余株可公开获取的光合共培养物——通过16S rRNA扩增子测序技术，评估了未来能否利用公共保藏库中的现成样本，为解析微生物群落在全球及区域碳、氮循环中的作用提供新的认知。本研究结果佐证了现有观点：总体而言，微生物培养物保藏库具备推动基础与应用研究的潜力。尽管共培养物能否大规模用于推断单一生物体的功能仍有待验证，但现有共培养物保藏库（如CCMEE）中可公开获取的样本，或可为这类研究提供经济高效的起点。在无需开展高成本野外工作的前提下获取保藏生物样本，在部分场景下或许是推动该领域发展、为难以直接采样的生态系统生物学研究提供新认知的少数可行途径之一。当前的新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）疫情便是绝佳实例：该疫情使得野外采样考察几乎无法开展，除非让参与研究的科研人员面临健康风险。