Satellite-gene abundance fusion reveals global hotspots of ocean ecosystem services

Abstract

The Ocean sustains planetary health through climate regulation, biodiversity, and essential ecosystem services. Plankton underpins these processes by driving primary production, sustaining food webs, and mediating carbon sequestration. Yet the spatial organization of plankton-based ecosystem services remains poorly understood. The High Seas Treaty and the 30% Ocean protection target by 2030 create an urgent need for science-based guidance for global ocean governance. Here, we aim to identify key planktonic areas associated with functional diversity, net primary productivity, and carbon export globally. We used machine learning to integrate omics-derived plankton functions and satellite observations with diversity metric and ecosystem services. Leveraging metagenomic data, we identified molecular functions strongly linked to ecosystem functioning and project their global distributions across seasons. We reveal putative hotspots of functional diversity, net primary productivity, and carbon export. Our analysis pinpoints areas where all three indicators converge synchronously, predominantly along oceanographic structures such as polar fronts and principal current systems. By relying on satellite data as core input, our approach captures the temporal variability of these hotspots, providing a global, dynamic protocol for projections of plankton-based ecosystem services. These findings establish a foundation for developing integrative conservation tools based on ecosystem functioning and inform adaptive management under climate change.

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Cite

BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{serandour2026satellitegene,
  title = {{Satellite-gene abundance fusion reveals global hotspots of ocean ecosystem services}},
  author = {B. Serandour and C. Andreani and A. Bagnaro and S. Bourgeois-Gironde and S. Chaffron and A. Couve and R. El Hourany and L. Guidi and I. Hojas and A. Abreu and A. Maass and D. Eveillard},
  howpublished = {bioRxiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.64898/2026.09.23.753815},
  url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753815v1},
  note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Satellite-gene abundance fusion reveals global hotspots of ocean ecosystem services
AU  - B. Serandour
AU  - C. Andreani
AU  - A. Bagnaro
AU  - S. Bourgeois-Gironde
AU  - S. Chaffron
AU  - A. Couve
AU  - R. El Hourany
AU  - L. Guidi
AU  - I. Hojas
AU  - A. Abreu
AU  - A. Maass
AU  - D. Eveillard
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/23
PB  - bioRxiv
DO  - 10.64898/2026.09.23.753815
UR  - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753815v1
AB  - The Ocean sustains planetary health through climate regulation, biodiversity, and essential ecosystem services. Plankton underpins these processes by driving primary production, sustaining food webs, and mediating carbon sequestration. Yet the spatial organization of plankton-based ecosystem services remains poorly understood. The High Seas Treaty and the 30% Ocean protection target by 2030 create an urgent need for science-based guidance for global ocean governance. Here, we aim to identify key planktonic areas associated with functional diversity, net primary productivity, and carbon export globally. We used machine learning to integrate omics-derived plankton functions and satellite observations with diversity metric and ecosystem services. Leveraging metagenomic data, we identified molecular functions strongly linked to ecosystem functioning and project their global distributions across seasons. We reveal putative hotspots of functional diversity, net primary productivity, and carbon export. Our analysis pinpoints areas where all three indicators converge synchronously, predominantly along oceanographic structures such as polar fronts and principal current systems. By relying on satellite data as core input, our approach captures the temporal variability of these hotspots, providing a global, dynamic protocol for projections of plankton-based ecosystem services. These findings establish a foundation for developing integrative conservation tools based on ecosystem functioning and inform adaptive management under climate change.
ER  -

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