Abstract
The present study tested in the Western Dutch Wadden Sea (WDW) UNESCO World Heritage Site why an on a global scale the aggressive non-indigenous red drift alga Gracilaria vermiculophylla didn’t succeed to overgrow the WDC. In such a multifaceted complex ecosystem like the dynamic WDC it seems like unraveling a Gordian knob in order to describe the inextricable relationship between this seaweed invader suppression and its (a) biotic environment. However, we succeeded at the molecular level to give a convincing reasoning at first grounded in the awareness of a since 1987 river Rhine-North-Sea-WDC severely Phosphorus (P) restricted ecosystem. Our ecological datasets gave via final DCA (Detrended Correspondence Analysis) awareness of the very compelling interaction between Ulva sp. and G.vermiculophylla. Based on LCMS-techniques we discovered that Ulva sp. have the advantage to use the biochemical pathway solely rarely observed in some euckaryotes- to have the potential to produce the betaine lipid diacylglyceryl-O-4’-(N,N,N,-trimethyl)homoserine (DGTS) which replaces the plant/seaweed cell wall structure phosphatidylcholine (PC) “lecithine” under phosphate-limiting growth conditions. Also we hope this lipidomics based compound DGTS can serve as an ecological biomarker in order to protect vulnerable ecosystems like the Wadden Sea (UNESCO World Heritage).
Highlights
The Wadden Sea is a European Coastal water extending along the North Sea coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark characterized by a highly dynamic ecosystem with an extremely high biological productivity and biodiversity [1,2]
The Wadden Sea became invaded by a non-endemic invasive seaweed species Gracilaria vermiculophylla (Figure 1), originally described from the Pacific (Japan) [5] which recently established in European waters as an invasive species
Our results clearly showed that the lipid profile of the pooled Ulva species polar lipids from the phosphorus limited western Dutch Wadden Sea, consisted of glycolipids (GL), phospholipids (PL), and the phosphorus-free betaine ester lipid 1,2-diacyl glycero-3-O-4-(N,N,N-trimethyl) homo-serine (DGTS) Mono(MGDG) and digalactosyldiacyl glycerins (DGDG) in addition to sulfoquinovosyldiacyl glycerin (SQDG) were identified in the glycolipid (GL) fraction
Summary
The Wadden Sea is a European Coastal water extending along the North Sea coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark characterized by a highly dynamic ecosystem with an extremely high biological productivity and biodiversity [1,2]. Nowhere in the world can such a large unbroken stretch of tidal flats been found accounting 60% of all tidal areas in Europe and North Africa [3]. Another unique feature is it ecological hydrodynamics which can be characterized by twice a day an inflow by tide of ≈15km of seawater originating from the North Sea doubling the volume of this estuary shallow sea to some 30km. The Wadden Sea became invaded by a non-endemic invasive seaweed species Gracilaria vermiculophylla (Figure 1), originally described from the Pacific (Japan) [5] which recently established in European waters as an invasive species
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