Unraveling plankton adaptation in global oceans through the untargeted analysis of lipidomes

Microbial responses to environmental changes are well studied in laboratory cultures, but in situ adaptations of plankton lipidomes remain less understood. Building upon a global lipidomic study showing temperature-driven lipid unsaturation regulation in marine plankton, we expanded the analysis spatially and methodologically to investigate the in situ adaptations of marine plankton. Through weighted correlation network analysis of 3164 lipid species from 930 samples, we identified 16 structurally distinct lipid clusters co-occurred across diverse oceanographic conditions. The highest lipid diversity was observed in the polar oceans, where plankton uses chain shortening for cold acclimation. Conversely, in the surface of tropical and subtropical oceans, plankton showed enrichment in non-phosphorus lipids, likely responding to warm temperature, with potential implications for the elemental stoichiometry of the biological pump. In the subsurface of these regions, highly unsaturated lipids were enriched, suggesting phytoplankton adaptation to low light and contributing unsaturated fatty acids to tropical and subtropical ocean food webs.