title: Biogeographic patterns in ocean microbes emerge in a neutral agent-based model.
abstract: A key question in ecology and evolution is the relative role of natural selection and neutral evolution in producing biogeographic patterns. We quantify the role of neutral processes by simulating division, mutation, and death of 100,000 individual marine bacteria cells with full 1 million-base-pair genomes in a global surface ocean circulation model. The model is run for up to 100,000 years and output is analyzed using BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) alignment and metagenomics fragment recruitment. Simulations show the production and maintenance of biogeographic patterns, characterized by distinct provinces subject to mixing and periodic takeovers by neighbors (coalescence), after which neutral evolution reestablishes the province and the patterns reorganize. The emergent patterns are substantial (e.g., down to 99.5% DNA identity between North and Central Pacific provinces) and suggest that microbes evolve faster than ocean currents can disperse them. This approach can also be used to explore environmental selection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA. ferdi@coe.neu.edu.
authors.forename: Ferdi L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Hellweger
authors.affiliation: Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science and School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Sebille
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Neil D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Fredrick
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D014644:Genetic Variation; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009154:Mutation; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D058974:Phylogeography; D012623:Seawater / Q000382:microbiology*; D012641:Selection, Genetic