Abstract
Microbes are considered to have a global distribution due to their high dispersal capabilities. However, our knowledge of the way geographically distant microbial communities assemble after dispersal in a new environment is limited. In this study, we examined whether communities would converge because similar taxa would be selected under the same environmental conditions, or would diverge because of initial community composition, after artificial dispersal. To this aim, a microcosm experiment was performed, in which the temporal changes in the composition and diversity of different prokaryoplankton assemblages from three distant geographic coastal areas (Banyuls-sur-Mer in northwest Mediterranean Sea, Pagasitikos Gulf in northeast Mediterranean and Woods Hole, MA, USA in the northwest Atlantic), were studied. Diversity was investigated using amplicon pyrosequencing of the V1–V3 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA. The three assemblages were grown separately in particle free and autoclaved Banyuls-sur-mer seawater at 18 °C in the dark. We found that the variability of prokaryoplankton community diversity (expressed as richness, evenness and dominance) as well as the composition were driven by patterns observed in Bacteria. Regarding community composition, similarities were found between treatments at family level. However, at the OTU level microbial communities from the three different original locations diverge rather than converge during incubation. It is suggested that slight differences in the composition of the initial prokaryoplankton communities, resulted in separate clusters the following days even when growth took place under identical abiotic conditions.
Highlights
The terms “microbe ubiquity” refers to the concept that microorganisms can overcome environmental and spatial constraints and can be dispersed over large distances [1]
The temporal and spatial turnover of aquatic bacterial populations has been attributed to variations of different biotic and abiotic factors, mostly phytoplankton blooms, grazing, viral infections, parasitic relationships, temperature, sunlight and salinity [6,7,8,9] which may lead to predictable patterns of bacterial population dynamics or short lived blooms of specific taxa [8]
We investigated the temporal changes of the prokaryoplankton community (Bacteria and Archaea) in artificially mixed microcosms from the day of inoculation (d0) to the stationary phase (d17)
Summary
The terms “microbe ubiquity” refers to the concept that microorganisms can overcome environmental and spatial constraints and can be dispersed over large distances [1]. The importance of environmental conditions on community assembly has been highlighted in a field study across the Atlantic Meridional Transect, which showed striking similarities in phytoplankton community structure between the same latitude regions, to the north and south of the equatorial divergence [1]. These authors suggested local environmental selection of broadly dispersed species to primarily control phytoplankton community structure. The main approach followed so far is “transplant experiments” [11,12] in which, water from a particular source (e.g., saline/freshwater, epilimnion/hypolimnion) is incubated in an adjacent area with different environmental conditions These experiments showed that bacterial community composition is source-dependent and modulated—to a lower degree—by local conditions. This study investigates geographically-distant microbial plankton community composition during growth, and whether the assembly processes differentiate between Bacteria and Archaea
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