Microbial community isolated from a whale bone in the Southern Ocean. whale fall metagenome

Whale carcasses on the sea floor are a rich source of organic matter for the organisms that inhabit the ocean depths. Tubeworms, mollusks, and crustaceans, similar to those found at hydrothermal vents, colonize these whale falls. Sulfate-reducing bacteria oxidize the organic matter, particularly the lipid-rich skeleton, producing sulfide that chemosynthetic microorganisms use for energy. These chemosynthetic microorganisms form the base of the food chain and, as symbionts, supply energy for the fauna on the whale carcass. This sample was obtained from a whale bone in the Southern Ocean (depth of 560 meters) off the West Antarctic Peninsula Shelf (S65.10 W64.47). The WGS project and sequences deposited into the Trace Archive can be found using the Project data link.