Abstract
Picocyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus are the most abundant primary producers in the global ocean, yet their contribution to carbon export has long been overlooked. Based on surveys of picocyanobacterial abundance (by qPCR) and community structure along water-column profiles and sediment cores across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, here we found that picocyanobacterial abundance were roughly 10–100 cells mL−1 in deep waters, and up to 100000 cells g−1 in surface sediments and 100 cells g−1 at 800 cm below seafloor. Moreover, the export and preservation are strongly lineage-specific: deep-water communities are largely derived from surface Prochlorococcus lineages, whereas sediment communities are overwhelmingly dominated by Synechococcus, particularly clades 5.1-CRD1 and 5.1-I. Furthermore, we estimated that nearly 99% exported picocyanobacterial cells are decomposed in surface sediment. These results suggest that Prochlorococcus may contribute more to supplying organic matter for element recycling, whereas Synechococcus may have greater contribution to carbon sequestration.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Yingting Sun, Xinyuanyuan Sun and Ru Li for their assistance in sampling. We thank Minggang Cai at Xiamen University for sharing the nutrient data of samples from the Indian Ocean. We also thank the crews of R/V Shiyan 1, R/V Shiyan 3, R/V Shiyan 6, and R/V HaiYangDizhi6. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 42176116, 41576126, 42306134), the Science & Technology Fundamental Resources Investigation Program (Grant No. 2023FY100803), the Rising Star Foundation of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (No. NHXX2019ST0101), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (No. 2017A030306020), the Guangdong Major Project of Basic and Applied Basic Research (No. 2019B030302004), and the Outstanding Talents Project under the Guangdong Special Support Program (No. 2021JC06H553).
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Qiu, C., Zhang, J., Li, C. et al. Synechococcus dominates the sedimentary record of exported picocyanobacteria in the ocean.
Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03622-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03622-9
Source: Ecology - nature.com
