No abstract

perhaps the largest movement of animals on Earth, is composed of mesopelagic species migrating vertically every night to feed in epipelagic depths and return to deeper water during the day. The objective of this study infers potential taxonomic identity of organisms in the DVM via their association with bacterioplankton signatures. High throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA V4 region and the use of bioinformatics and statistics provided evidence to which bacteria appeared associated with either upward or downward vertical migration during two cycles. DNA was extracted from water samples and sequenced. Data analysis was performed using R Studio software. Our results confirm the vertical movement of bacterial taxa throughout the pelagic depths. The most abundant bacteria present during the Vertical Migration were of Genera Marinobacter, Alteromonas, Prochlorococcus, and class Gammaproteobacteria. These taxa occurred at depth of 320 meters which is the mesopelagic zone. Proteobacteria was only found during the vertical migration at mesopelagic depths, whereas Cyanobacteria was only found during the vertical migration at epipelagic depths. This indicates that these two phyla of bacteria are distinct to their respective zones. IntroductionThe earth's oceans hold vast amounts of water, with great depths and complex dynamics making them difficult to study. To better characterize the Gulf of Mexico, a relatively deep ocean basin, the DEEPEND consortium (www.deependconsortium.org) was formed. DEEPEND stands for DeepPelagic Nekton Dynamics. This consortium began after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DWHOS) in 2010. The BP/Deepwater Horizon (DWH) discharge in 2010 was the largest marine open water hydrocarbon discharge to date. The DWH well blowout at the seafloor discharged approximately 5 million barrels of oil and at least 250,000 metric tons of natural gas to the deep water (about 1,500m) of the Gulf of Mexico (Jove et al,).Teams of DEEPEND scientists go on cruises to collect water and organismal samples and bring them back to the lab for molecular studies. The last cruise the team went on was in May, and they