Abstract
Picocyanobacteria are extremely important organisms in the world’s oceans and freshwater ecosystems. They play an essential role in primary production and their domination in phytoplankton biomass is common in both oligotrophic and eutrophic waters. Their role is expected to become even more relevant with the effect of climate change. However, this group of photoautotrophic organisms still remains insufficiently recognized. Only a few works have focused in detail on the occurrence of massive blooms of picocyanobacteria, their toxicity and allelopathic activity. Filling the gap in our knowledge about the mechanisms involved in the proliferation of these organisms could provide a better understanding of aquatic environments. In this review, we gathered and described recent information about allelopathic activity of picocyanobacteria and occurrence of their massive blooms in many aquatic ecosystems. We also examined the relationships between climate change and representative picocyanobacterial genera from freshwater, brackish and marine ecosystems. This work emphasizes the importance of studying the smallest picoplanktonic fractions of cyanobacteria.
Highlights
Picocyanobacteria have been recognized in the last few years as important components of the phytoplankton in freshwaters and brackish ecosystems and in the world ocean [1,2,3], constituting an important link in the food web and the basis of primary production [4]
The authors showed that the addition of picocyanobacterial filtrate stimulated the growth of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae and had no allelopathic effects on Rivularia sp. [62]. These results demonstrated for the first time that picocyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. negatively and positively affected coexisting filamentous cyanobacteria the identification of the allelopathic compounds is necessary to better understand the molecular targets in the affected species
Picocyanobacteria are common in freshwater, brackish and marine ecosystems throughout the world and play an important role in the functioning of aquatic ecosystems
Summary
Picocyanobacteria (with cell size in the range of 0.2–2.0 μm) have been recognized in the last few years as important components of the phytoplankton in freshwaters and brackish ecosystems and in the world ocean [1,2,3], constituting an important link in the food web and the basis of primary production [4]. Picocyanobacteria may account for up to 50% of cyanobacterial biomass in the world ocean [4] They can be responsible for up to 80–90% of the total carbon production in aquatic habitats [5]. According to reports by Sorokin et al [13], in some situations picocyanobacteria can provide up to 98% of phytoplankton production By making such a large proportion of phytoplankton, picoplanktonic organisms affect the composition and quantity of matter and the flow of energy to higher trophic levels [14]. The large number of autotrophic picoplankton makes these organisms crucial for the ecological stability of aquatic ecosystems [16]
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