Fig. 2: Transcription of secondary metabolites.

a Taxonomic composition of the metagenomes based on exact sequence variants (ESVs) of 16S rRNA transcripts during a soil wetting experiment. Relative abundances were calculated after assigning taxonomy against the SILVA reference database. b Core bacterial gene transcription (n = 46 genes including DNA-binding proteins, Large and Small subunit ribosomal proteins) shown in blue compared to secondary metabolite gene transcription (orange). Genes transcribed at all 10 timepoints (rightmost point) are thought to experience constitutive expression. The y-axis indicates the proportion of genes transcribed at each timepoint category. c Two putative rearranged siderophore-producing gene clusters found in the co-assembled metagenomes that showed homology are aligned. The heatmaps indicate the transcription of each gene in the BGC based on statistical tests against the control sample; 0 h at the point of wetting. Heatmap columns are scaled to the size of the mapped gene, and row order (n = 13 rows) indicates progression across the experiment from 0 h (bottom row) to 3 days after wetting (top row). The left-hand column shows day (yellow) and night (purple) categories. The predicted chemical structure of NODE_86 is shown above while the structure of NODE_81 is below the contig. Transcriptional profiles of gene clusters with differentially expressed genes at night are shown with stars.