Abstract
Here we present a pilot study demonstrating, that preservation with mercury chloride allows the application of PCR-based molecular methods for the characterization of marine protist communities collected with moored long-term sediment traps. They can provide information on pelagic protist communities by collecting sinking plankton from the upper water column all year-round, even in remote polar oceans. Assessment of small protist species from the nano- and picoplankton fractions in sedimented material by microscopy is extremely challenging or almost impossible. Hence, comprehensive studies of variability in protist community composition in moored long-term sediment traps are scarce. Considering that marine nano- and picoeukaryotes are ecologically very important, new approaches are urgently needed to investigate protists in the smallest size-fractions of moored long-term sediment trap samples. We applied the quick and cost-effective Terminal Restriction Length Polymorphism (T-RFLP) on a set of selected samples that were collected between 2000 and 2010 in September at a depth of ~ 300 m in the area of the “LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) site HAUSGARTEN“ in the eastern Fram Strait (Arctic). The results of these analyses suggest a change in the trapped protist community after 2002 in this area. A comparison of 18S sequences obtained via 454-pyrosequencing from samples collected in the water column and mercury chloride preserved sediment traps in 2009 and 2010 suggests, that sediment traps might reflect the pelagic eukaryotic microbial biodiversity qualitatively. Furthermore, we have indication that preservation with mercury chloride does not severely change the nucleotide composition of 18S rRNA genes in long-term sediment traps. Overall, we suggest that preservation with mercury chloride is a key to open the door for molecular genetic analyses of long-term sediment trap samples, and that PCR-based molecular methods have a strong potential to become an important tool for comprehensive taxonomic analyses of protist- and bacterial communities in moored long-term sediment traps.
Highlights
The deployment of moored sediment traps provides valuable long-term information on particle export and composition of sedimenting particles
All samples contained at least one TRFLP fragment in the size range of 379–383 bp deduced in silico for the dominant pelagic taxa collected in Fram Strait in July 2010 (Kilias et al, 2013)
We demonstrate for the first time the applicability of molecular methods on mercury chloridepreserved cells obtained by means of moored sediment traps
Summary
The deployment of moored sediment traps provides valuable long-term information on particle export and composition of sedimenting particles It facilitates an understanding of plankton dynamics in the upper water column all year-round. It is expected that global warming and the ensuing sea ice melt will strongly alter the Arctic pelagic environment This could eventually result in modification of unicellular plankton species composition and biomass with changes in matter fluxes within the entire pelagic system. Considering the ecological relevance of the nano- and picoplankton fractions, new approaches are needed that provide comprehensive information on changes in protist communities collected with long-term sediment traps
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