Depth structures metabolic potential and warming responses inmarine microbial eukaryotes

Depth stratification in marine microbial eukaryotes links nanoplankton and picoplankton functional composition to export versus resident community signatures, with warming reshaping metabolic potential by region.

• Why it matters: Depth-dependent metabolic potential is poorly resolved, limiting predictions of how microbial eukaryotes drive nutrient cycling and how their functions shift under climate change.
• What they did: They used global metagenomics across tropical and subtropical full water-column samples plus bathypelagic metatranscriptomics, analyzing depth-dependent functional patterns across plankton size fractions.
• The result: Metabolic functional diversity tracked taxonomic composition, heterotrophic lineages supported phosphorus and sulfur acquisition at depth, and end-of-century warming projections showed region-specific photosynthetic, aerobic, and heterotrophic changes consistent with mixotrophic metabolic rebalancing.

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