Hybrid sequencing reveals hidden GBR plankton genomes and reef-management signals
A Nature study introduces the Great Barrier Reef Microbial Genomes Database (GBR-MGD), compiling 5,283 prokaryotic genomes plus 20 picoeukaryote and 808,585 viral genomes from GBR seawater using hybrid Nanopore and Illumina sequencing; it shows Illumina-only short reads miss low-GC, highly diverse taxa like Pelagibacter and Prochlorococcus, which Nanopore long reads capture, enabling chromosome-level eukaryotic MAGs and expanded Crassvirales; the GBR-MGD links microbial community shifts to reef zoning, identifying indicator taxa that predict reef protection status and demonstrating a large-scale ecosystem-level impact of fisheries management on microbial communities; the work advocates routine long-read metagenomics to improve marine microbiome inventories and support predictive reef monitoring.