3.2.1. Case study 1
Decelle et al. (2018) have demonstrated, using the Tara Oceans 18S-V9 metabarcode dataset, that the dinoflagellate genusSymbiodinium well known for sustaining coral reefs photosymbiosis, is ecologically and economically important in the open ocean. The relative abundance of Symbiodiniaceae metabarcodes in this study was high in tropical and sub-tropical waters, whilst reaching undetectable levels at higher latitudes (Figure 1B in (Decelle et al., 2018)), indicating an ecological preference for warm and oligotrophic oceanic waters. We searched for Symbiodiniaceae as a taxon query in the OBA “Community ecological analysis “ interface targeting theTara Oceans 18S-V9 metabarcode dataset. The resulting world map (Figure 4A) and relative abundance versus latitude scatterplot (Figure 4B) confirm the strong bounding of Symbiodiniaceae under 40 degrees of latitude as in (Decelle et al., 2018).