Abstract
Phytoplankton blooms are a worldwide problem and can greatly affect ecological processes in aquatic systems, but its impacts on the functional potential of microbial communities are limited. In this study, a high-throughput microarray-based technology (GeoChip) was used to profile the functional potential of free-living microbes from the Xiamen Sea Area in response to a 2011 Akashiwo sanguinea bloom. The bloom altered the overall community functional structure. Genes that were significantly (p < 0.05) increased during the bloom included carbon degradation genes and genes involved in nitrogen (N) and/or phosphorus (P) limitation stress. Such significantly changed genes were well explained by chosen environmental factors (COD, nitrite-N, nitrate-N, dissolved inorganic phosphorus, chlorophyll-a and algal density). Overall results suggested that this bloom might enhance the microbial converting of nitrate to N2 and ammonia nitrogen, decrease P removal from seawater, activate the glyoxylate cycle, and reduce infection activity of bacteriophage. This study presents new information on the relationship of algae to other microbes in aquatic systems, and provides new insights into our understanding of ecological impacts of phytoplankton blooms.
Highlights
Phytoplankton blooms are a worldwide problem and can greatly affect ecological processes in aquatic systems, but its impacts on the functional potential of microbial communities are limited
In the phytoplankton bloom area, bacterial abundance increases greatly[4,9], especially species that consume organic matter released by the algae
We aimed to address the following questions: (i) does the bloom significantly change the microbial community functional potential? (ii) what functional processes are influenced by the bloom? and (iii) are there specific correlations between the A. sanguine population and the functional potential of the associated microbial communities? Our results showed that this bloom significantly altered overall community functional structure and promoted organic carbon degradation, ammonium accumulation and decreased P removal; there were statistical correlations between A. sanguine abundance and the functional potential of the microbial community
Summary
Phytoplankton blooms are a worldwide problem and can greatly affect ecological processes in aquatic systems, but its impacts on the functional potential of microbial communities are limited. Studies of the influence of phytoplankton blooms on marine ecosystems have primarily focused on the changes of other microbial communities as revealed by 16S rDNA clone libraries[13], polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis[14,15], flow cytometry[16], terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism[13], fluorescence in situ hybridization[17,18], metatranscriptomics[19], and high-throughput sequencing[20,21] These methods mainly focus on the microbial community instead of their functional potential, except the metatranscriptomics which could be used to investigate the real time function fluctuation based on RNA. It seems that viruses might have less activity and bacteria have enhanced substrate utilization levels during bloom
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