Microbial community composition in the north polar waters varies greatly throughout the year. Spring melting of the ice and increase in light disposal spur the bloom of phytoplankton, taking over the functional and phylogenetically diverse bacterioplankton communities of dark and cold winter waters. Mainly heterotrophic and photoheterotrophic bacterial populations feed on the nutrients derived from the phytoplankton bloom during summer. With fall ́s shorter light hours and colder seawater temperatures, the bacterial community shifts to those chemolithoautotrophic that will prevail during winter. TaraOceans navigated around the north polar waters extensively sampling the microbial plankton communities during spring, summer and the beginning of fall (May to October 2013). We have generated around 900 microbial metagenomic assembled genomes (or MAGs) from the combination of the 41 sequenced metagenomes, which cover the whole polar circle from spring to the beginning of fall. Together with the physical and chemical information of all stations we are capable of detecting the distribution of the different keystone prokaryotic taxa around the pole and through the seasons at maximum resolution possible, at genome level, with a particular focus on the genomics and metabolic potential of those following the phenology of phytoplankton blooms

POLAR 2018 - XXXV SCAR Meetings and SCAR/IASC Open Science Conference, 19-23 June 2018, Davos, Switzerland.-- 1 page

Peer Reviewed