SUPPORTING INFORMATION FOR ONLINE PUBLICATION:
Bacterial taxa-area and distance-decay relationships in marine environments
L. Zinger1,2, A. Boetius1, A. Ramette1
1
HGF-MPG Joint Research Group on Deep Sea Ecology and Technology, Max Planck
Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstrasse 1, D-28359 Bremen, Germany
2
CNRS & Université Paul Sabatier, UMR 5174 Evolution et Diversité Biologique, bâtiment
4R1, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse, France
1
SUPPORTING TABLES
Table S1: Sample name and associated characteristics are uploaded separately in a .txt file. Longitudes and latitudes are provided in decimal
degrees and sample depth in meters. OTU average relative occupancy corresponds to the average proportion of sites occupied by each OTU.
Table S2: Dataset characteristics per ecosystem type and realm. Values are indicated for the entire dataset, and per sample ± SD in brackets
Overall nb sequences
Nb OTUs
% Singletons
% Abundant OTUs1
175
2491405 (14237 ± 6955)
23105 (539 ± 289)
54 (46 ± 30)
6.89 (7.05±3.34)
OTU average relative
occupancy2 ± SD
0.023 ± 0.067
Nb of samples
Raw data
Coastal waters
Surface
waters4
70
1566743 (22382 ± 9897)
9982 (619 ± 237)
49 (38 ± 16)
10.03 (9.53 ± 3.23)
0.062 ± 0.124
Deep waters5
61
1190636 (19519 ± 7611)
12132 (966 ± 262)
48 (38 ± 16)
10.07 (5.28 ± 1.45)
0.079 ± 0.150
Total Pelagic
306
5248784 (17152 ± 8569)
36283 (643 ± 318)
56 (42 ± 24)
8.08 (7.15 ± 3.11)
0.017 ± 0.054
72
1725682 (23968 ± 11833)
71586 (2753 ± 1378)
48 (51 ± 28)
4.56 (2.14 ± 1.12)
0.038 ± 0.068
Coastal sediments
Deep-sea sediments
Standardized
data3
60
1221543 (20359 ± 7518)
45300 (2797 ± 1800)
48 (49 ± 39)
5.64 (2.15 ± 1.00)
0.061 ± 0.110
Total Benthic
132
2947225 (22327 ± 10227)
104097 (2773 ± 1578)
49 (50 ± 33)
5.14 (2.12 ± 1.04)
0.026 ± 0.056
Coastal waters
175
875000 (5000 ± 0)
54880 (313 ± 141)
10 (38 ± 22)
1.61 (0.03 ± 7e-5)
0.025 ± 0.072
Surface
waters4
70
350000 (5000 ± 0)
22887 (326 ± 111)
8 (37 ± 15)
2.00 (5.82 ± 0.92)
0.067 ± 0.129
Deep waters5
61
305000 (5000 ± 0)
31019 (508 ± 75)
8 (43 ± 10)
1.60 (3.35 ± 0.39)
0.081 ± 0.146
Total Pelagic
306
1530000 (5000 ± 0)
108786 (355 ± 145)
7 (39 ± 21)
1.34 (5.07 ± 0.84)
0.019 ± 0.057
72
360000 (5000 ± 0)
81772 (1135 ± 523)
18 (54 ± 27)
1.15 (0.88 ± 0.35)
0.034 ± 0.059
60
300000 (5000 ± 0)
70872 (1181±485)
13 (52 ± 29)
1.11 (0.72 ± 0.25)
0.057 ± 0.105
132
660000 (5000 ± 0)
152644 (1156±505)
14 (53 ± 28)
1.08 (0.87 ± 0.26)
0.024 ± 0.051
Coastal sediments
Deep-sea sediments
Total Benthic
1
OTUs > 50 sequences; 2 Average proportion of sites occupied by each OTU; 3After random resampling of 5000 sequences per sample; 4samples
<=200 m water depth; 5samples > 200 m water depth.
2
SUPPORTING FIGURES
Figure S1: Schematic representation of the analytical pipeline used to calculate TAR and
DDR slope coefficients.
Figure S2: Effect of the removal of rare taxa on dataset characteristics in surface-sea waters
(green, squares), deep-sea waters (blue, circles) and coastal sediments (orange, triangles): a)
number of non-empty, remaining samples, b-d) pairwise geographic distances, e-g) Average
richness and percentage of remaining OTUs and sequences per samples, h) Average OTU
relative occupancy (average proportion of sites occupied by each OTU), i) Proportion of
OTUs detected in the smallest area, j-l) Pairwise similarities between close (geographic
distances <2000 km, left part of boxplots) and distant communities (geographic distances
>12,000 km, right part of boxplots). Data used here are the same as in Fig. 2.
Figure S3: Effect of the removal of rare taxa TAR (a) and DDR (b) slope coefficients and
intercepts. Raw intercepts are displayed as obtained by linear regression on the data used in
Fig. 2. Green squares, blue circles and orange triangles represent parameters obtained with the
raw dataset in surface-, deep-sea waters and coastal sediments, respectively. Symbols with
backgrounds of decreasing grey intensities correspond to data obtained by removing taxa of
increasing abundance.
Figure S4: Relationship between z and β obtained per realm/ecosystem type obtained with
1,000 randomly resampling of 40 samples in the standardized presence/absence community
tables. The colour gradient (cyan to dark-red) represents point density. The corresponding
Kendall  correlation coefficients and their respective significance are indicated in each panel.
Significance codes for Holm-corrected p-values: ***: P < 0.001, **: P < 0.01, n.s.: P > 0.05.
3
Figure S5: Distribution of Kendall  correlation coefficients between z and β pairs obtained
for each ecosystem type at each resampling step (green bars) and between z and permuted β
values (grey bars) defined as a null distribution. n = 1,000 in each case.
4
1
FIGURE S1
Standardized OTU table
OTU1 OTU2 OTU3 … OTUk Nseq
S1
5000
S2
5000
S3
5000
Richness per Area calculation
(nb. Richness values per Area = 40; nb. Areas = 10)
AT
A3
…
Sn
5000
Reference selection: each sample
considered successively
A2
A1
Reference sample Sr
Random resampling x 1000
(nb. samples = 40)
Samples ranked by distance to
the reference
OTU1 OTU2 OTU3 … OTUk
OTU1 OTU2 OTU3 … OTUk
Sr
S1
S3
S3
Sn
S1
Averaging of the 40 Richness
values obtained per Area
DDR
Sorensen
similarity matrix
2
Richness observed
per Area for Sr
log Community Similarity
(Sorensen)
log Geographic Distances
TAR
log Avg. Richness
log Area
5
FIGURE S2
b
c
5000
0
500
600
0
0
10 50 90
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
270
330
390
450
510
570
1.0
0.5
0.0
80
60
40
20
0
0
100
200
300
400
10 50 90
500
600
100
200
300
400
500
450
510
570
0
10 50 90
210
270
330
390
450
510
570
0.20
60
40
20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
100
200
300
400
500
600
0
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
100
200
300
400
500
600
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
l
0
log Avg Pairwise
Similarity
-1
-2
-3
150
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
k
-5
-4
log Avg Pairwise
Similarity
390
80
0
0
0
-1
-2
330
h
600
j
-3
270
100
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
-4
210
0
0
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
i
150
0
1.5
Avg %
Remaining Sequences
Avg %
Remaining OTUs
2.0
5000
0
0
g
100
2.5
10000
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
f
3.0
log10 Avg OTU
Richness Obs
210
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
e
log Avg S:S tot ratio
in min Area
150
Avg OTU
relative occupancy
400
log Avg Pairwise
Similarity
300
-1
200
-2
100
5000
-3
0
10000
15000
-1
0
10000
15000
-2
20
15000
-3
40
20000
-4
60
d
20000
Pairwise Geographic
Distances (km)
Pairwise Geographic
Distances (km)
Nb of Remaining
Samples
20000
Pairwise Geographic
Distances (km)
a
-4
3
0
4
100
200
300
400
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
500
600
1 5 9 14 20 26 32 5 9 14 20 26 32
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
1 5 9 14 20 26 32 5 9 14 20 26 32
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
1 5 9 14 20 26 32 5 9 14 20 26 32
Maximum abundance
of OTUs removed
6
FIGURE S3
a
0
-2
-6 -4
-10
TAR's Intercept
2
4
TAR
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
z
b
-2.0
-3.0
-4.0
DDR's Intercept
-1.0
DDR
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
|b|
7
FIGURE S4
Pelagic
0.6
0.4
0.2
z
0.4
0.2
Kendall t = 0.15 ***
0.0
0.0
Kendall t = 0.38 ***
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.00
0.05
|b|
0.6
0.6
z
0.2
z
0.10
0.15
0.00
0.05
|b|
0.10
0.15
|b|
Coastal sediments
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
|b|
Deep-sea sediments
0.4
0.2
0.2
z
0.4
0.6
g
0.6
f
Kendall t = 0.08 **
0.0
Kendall t = 0.15 ***
0.0
0.0
0.05
Deep-sea waters
e
0.4
0.6
0.4
0.2
z
Surface waters
d
Kendall t = 0.29 ***
0.00
Kendall t = 0.09 ***
0.0
Kendall t = 0.02n.s.
0.0
z
0.15
|b|
Coastal waters
c
0.10
0.4
0.00
0.2
z
Benthic
b
0.6
a
0.00
0.05
0.10
|b|
0.15
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
|b|
8
100
50
0
Frequency
150
FIGURE S5
-1.0
-0.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
Kendall's t
9