Effects of inorganic and organic nutrient inputs on bacterioplankton community composition along a latitudinal transect in the Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

AME Aquatic Microbial Ecology Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials AME 60:299-313 (2010) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/ame01435 Effects of inorganic and organic nutrient inputs on bacterioplankton community composition along a latitudinal transect in the Atlantic Ocean Eva Teira1,*, Sandra Martínez-García1, Alejandra Calvo-Díaz2,3,4, Xosé Anxelu G. Morán2 1Departamento Ecología y Biología Animal, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Vigo, Campus Lagoas-Marcosende, 36310 Vigo, Spain 2Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Centro Oceanográfico de Xixón, Camín de L’Arbeyal s/n, 33212 Xixón, Spain 3Present address: Department of Biological Oceanography, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), PO Box 59, 1790 AB Den Burg, The Netherlands 4Present address: Department of Marine Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria *Email: teira@uvigo.es ABSTRACT: Bacterioplankton are responsible for a large fraction of respiration and dissolved organic matter (DOM) remineralisation in the ocean; therefore, changes in their taxonomic composition due to changes in nutrient inputs may have important biogeochemical implications. The impact of nutrient loading will depend on the type of input and the initial environmental conditions. We conducted a set of 5 microcosm experiments along a broad latitudinal transect in the Atlantic Ocean (26°N to 29°S) in order to assess the effects of inorganic (nitrate, ammonium, phosphate, silica) and organic (glucose, amino acids) inputs, added separately as well as jointly, on the bacterioplankton community composition at the level of major groups. We followed changes in the relative abundance of important bacterial phylogenetic (Roseobacter spp., SAR11, Gammaproteobacteria, Bacteroidetes) and cytometric (low, high and very high nucleic acid content) groups. We observed that distinct groups responded differently to nutrient additions: SAR11 and Bacteroidetes responded negatively to organic and mixed additions, while Roseobacter spp. and Gammaproteobacteria responded positively. Only the group Roseobacter spp. responded positively to inorganic additions. The abundance of very high nucleic acid content bacteria was low in the control and the inorganic treatment; however, they reached very high numbers in the organic and mixed treatments. There was a clear increasing north to south gradient in the magnitude of response of Gammaproteobacteria to organic inputs (containing carbon and nitrogen), likely related to an increasing north to south gradient in phosphate concentration. The magnitude of response of Gammaproteobacteria explained 89% of the observed variability in the magnitude of bacterial production response, which suggests a strong link between bacterial community composition and carbon cycling in the oligotrophic ocean. KEY WORDS: Nutrient enrichment · Microcosms · Bacterioplankton · Oligotrophic ocean Full text in pdf format PreviousCite this article as: Teira E, Martínez-García S, Calvo-Díaz A, Morán XAG (2010) Effects of inorganic and organic nutrient inputs on bacterioplankton community composition along a latitudinal transect in the Atlantic Ocean. Aquat Microb Ecol 60:299-313. https://doi.org/10.3354/ame01435Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in AME Vol. 60, No. 3. Online publication date: August 03, 2010 Print ISSN: 0948-3055; Online ISSN: 1616-1564 Copyright © 2010 Inter-Research.