Abstract
Marine net community production (NCP) tracks uptake of carbon by plankton communities and its potential transport to depth. Relationships between marine microbial community composition and NCP currently remain unclear despite their importance for assessing how different taxa impact carbon export. We conducted 16 and 18S rRNA gene (rDNA) sequencing on samples collected across the Western North Atlantic in parallel with high-resolution O2/Ar-derived NCP measurements. Using an internal standard technique to estimate in-situ prokaryotic and eukaryotic rDNA abundances per liter, we employed statistical approaches to relate patterns of microbial diversity to NCP. Taxonomic abundances calculated using internal standards provided valuable context to traditional relative abundance metrics. A bloom in the Mid-Atlantic Bight featured high eukaryote abundances with low eukaryotic diversity and was associated with the harmful algal bloom-forming Aureococcus anophagefferens, phagotrophic algae, heterotrophic flagellates, and particle-associated bacteria. These results show that coastal Aureococcus blooms host a distinct community associated with regionally significant peaks in NCP. Meanwhile, weak relationships between taxonomy and NCP in less-productive waters suggest that productivity across much of this region is not linked to specific microplankton taxa.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by an NSF-CAREER grant awarded to NC (#1350710) and a Chateaubri and Fellowship awarded to SW. NC was also supported by the "Laboratoire d'Excellence" LabexMER (ANR-10-LABX-19) and co-funded by a grant from the French government under the program "Investissements d'Avenir". RE was supported by an NSF GRFP award (1106401). We thank the staff of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences as well as the crew and technicians of the R/V Atlantic Explorer for their valuable assistance in organizing and conducting our field study. We are also thankful to Rod Johnson, Bruce Williams, and Natasha McDonald at BIOS for their help with sample shipping and analysis. We are additionally grateful to Karoline Faust for her input on network approaches and to Geoffrey Smith for his help and for our use of his towfish equipment.
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Wang, S., Lin, Y., Gifford, S. et al. Linking patterns of net community production and marine microbial community structure in the western North Atlantic. ISME J 12, 2582–2595 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-018-0163-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-018-0163-4
