Spatial and temporal scales of variation in bacterioplankton community structure in the NW Mediterranean Sea

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 40:229-240 (2005) - doi:10.3354/ame040229 Spatial and temporal scales of variation in bacterioplankton community structure in the NW Mediterranean Sea Jean-François Ghiglione*, Marièle Larcher, Philippe Lebaron Observatoire Océanographique de Banyuls, Laboratoire Arago, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6), Institut National des Sciences de l’Univers (INSU) CNRS-UMR-7621, BP 44, 66651 Banyuls-sur-mer Cedex, France *Email: ghiglione@obs-banyuls.fr ABSTRACT: An important query in marine microbial ecology is at what temporal and spatial scales variations in the structure of natural bacterial communities occur. Samples of different volumes were collected at different spatial (vertical and horizontal) and temporal (from hours to seasons) scales along a transect between a coastal station (26 m depth) and an offshore Microbial Observatory (1000 m depth) in the NW Mediterranean Sea. The structure of the bacterial communities was determined by capillary electrophoresis–single strand conformation polymorphism (CE–SSCP) fingerprinting of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-amplified 16S rDNA. This technique is a powerful tool to compare natural microbial assemblages at different spatial or temporal scales. Similar bacterial assemblages were found up to 3.7 km from the coastal station, whereas significant changes were found over greater distances (from 9.3 to 33.3 km). Although the bacterial community structure did not change with depth at coastal and shallow stations, vertical changes were found at deeper stations, most likely due to vertical variations in physico-chemical and biogeochemical parameters. Temporal changes were mainly related to environmental variations that occurred at a seasonal scale and during phytoplankton blooms. Finally, we suggest that long-term studies, at least in the NW Mediterranean Sea, should involve a minimum sampling time scale of 2 wk and a shorter time-scale when environmental changes are detected by the real-time monitoring of a few basic parameters (i.e. fluorescence, temperature, salinity). Sampling strategies should also include different depths depending on the vertical structure of the water column, based on the same basic parameters. KEY WORDS: Bacteria · CE–SSCP · Community structure · Sampling strategy · Microbial observatory Full text in pdf format PreviousNextExport citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in AME Vol. 40, No. 3. Online publication date: October 18, 2005 Print ISSN: 0948-3055; Online ISSN: 1616-1564 Copyright © 2005 Inter-Research.