Fig. 1: Distribution of sulfur-cycling potential across bacterial and archaeal phyla.
From: Microbial iron oxide respiration coupled to sulfide oxidation
a, Left, number of GTDB taxa carrying at least one of 42 sulfur-cycling marker genes. Right, among sulfur-metabolizing microorganisms, a substantial fraction is exclusively represented by uncultured taxa. b, Distribution of 42 sulfur-cycling marker genes across archaeal and bacterial phyla. The top 50 of 120 phyla with the highest number of sulfur-cycling genes are shown. The size of points indicates the number of genomes encoding a particular sulfur-cycling gene (with log transformation). Sulfur-cycling guilds lacking any cultivated representatives in a phylum are depicted in less opaque colour. Double asterisks indicate microbial phyla with no or few cultivated representatives. Genes associated with broad sulfur-cycling functional categories are shown with different colours. DMS, dimethylsulfide; SQ, sulfoquinovose.
