Scientists from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia have summarized the results of the largest DNA study of ocean life to date. The report was published in the scientific journal magazine Frontiers in Science (FIS).
The ocean remains the world’s largest habitat, but much of its biodiversity remains unknown.
Researchers have managed to overcome obstacles that had previously prevented the creation of a complete atlas of ocean life. The advent of DNA sequencing technology has eliminated the problem that most marine organisms cannot be studied in the laboratory. Water and sediment samples are now sufficient to identify creatures.
Thanks to the advancement of computing power and artificial intelligence (AI) tools, scientists have been able to quickly analyze large volumes of resulting data.
Using artificial intelligence, the team scanned DNA sequences from 2,102 samples taken from different depths and identified 317.5 million gene groups. More than half of these can be classified by function and type of organism.
“The KMAP 1.0 Global Ocean Gene Catalog is a step towards understanding the full diversity of the ocean, containing more than 317 million gene sets from marine organisms worldwide. The catalog is dedicated to marine microbes that significantly affect the health of the ocean, the Earth’s climate and, as a result, human life,” said Elisa Lajolo, lead author of the scientific study.
The KMAP 1.0 catalog has already revealed differences in microbial activity in the water column and ocean floor, as well as a surprising number of fungi living in the “twilight” mesopelagic zone. These and other discoveries will help scientists understand how microbes living in different habitats shape ecosystems, contribute to ocean health, and influence climate.
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