ArticleNature microbiology2023
Chemotaxis increases metabolic exchanges between marine picophytoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Single-cell quantification reveals divergent mixotrophic strategies underlying niche partitioning in marineScience advances · 2026Article
- Physical encounters impose a consistency-amount trade-off on bacterial group formation in marine environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- The ecology of bacterial attachment to phytoplankton.Nature microbiology · 2026Review
- Photosynthesis-driven interactions in the phycosphere enhance bacterial extracellular superoxide production.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Polysaccharide Utilization and Adhesion Enable the Genome-StreamlinedMicroorganisms · 2026Article
- Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Models and co-culture experiments assess four mechanisms of phytoplankton-bacteria interactions.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Chlorophyll a gradients shift heterotrophic bacterial assembly from dispersal limitation to biotic filtering of picophytoplankton.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Advantages of run-reverse motility pattern of bacteria for tracking light and small food sources in dynamic fluid environments.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Article
- An atlas of metabolites driving chemotaxis in prokaryotes.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Slower swimming promotes chemotactic encounters between bacteria and small phytoplankton.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Individual-based modeling unravels spatial and social interactions in bacterial communities.The ISME journal · 2025Review
- Bacterial volatile organic compound specialists in the phycosphere.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Spatially structured bacterial interactions alter algal carbon flow to bacteria.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Urea-based mutualistic transfer of nitrogen in biological soil crusts.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Two-step localization driven by peptidoglycan hydrolase in interbacterial predation.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Marine phytoplankton impose strong selective pressures onISME communications · 2025Article
- Article
- Overlooked Vital Role of Persistent Algae-Bacteria Interaction in Ocean Recalcitrant Carbon Sequestration and Its Response to Ocean Warming.Global change biology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Behaviours such as chemotaxis can facilitate metabolic exchanges between phytoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria, which ultimately regulate oceanic productivity and biogeochemistry. However, numerically dominant picophytoplankton have been considered too small to be detected by chemotactic bacteria, implying that cell-cell interactions might not be possible between some of the most abundant organisms in the ocean. Here we examined how bacterial behaviour influences metabolic exchanges at the single-cell level between the ubiquitous picophytoplankton Synechococcus and the heterotrophic bacterium Marinobacter adhaerens, using bacterial mutants deficient in motility and chemotaxis. Stable-isotope tracking revealed that chemotaxis increased nitrogen and carbon uptake of both partners by up to 4.4-fold. A mathematical model following thousands of cells confirmed that short periods of exposure to small but nutrient-rich microenvironments surrounding Synechococcus cells provide a considerable competitive advantage to chemotactic bacteria. These findings reveal that transient interactions mediated by chemotaxis can underpin metabolic relationships among the ocean's most abundant microorganisms.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.