Habitat Heterogeneity and Connectivity: Effects on the Planktonic Protist Community Structure at Two Adjacent Coastal Sites (the Lagoon and the Gulf of Venice, Northern Adriatic Sea, Italy) Revealed by Metabarcoding

Minicante, Simona Armeli; Piredda, Roberta; Quero, Grazia Marina; Finotto, Stefania; Aubry, Fabrizio Bernardi; Bastianini, Mauro; Pugnetti, Alessandra; Zingone, Adriana

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2019.02736

Cited by 27 publications

(29 citation statements)

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“…Nanoflagellates are difficult or impossible to identify with light microscopy and in routine phytoplankton long-term monitoring they will very likely always be left undetermined, so that an important part of the phytoplankton biodiversity will remain hidden. Actually, recent studies on the VL protists through metabarcoding [59,60] revealed that nanoflagellates are represented by several distinct species, some of which (e.g., Picochlorum, Micromonas) were reported for the first the lagoon in that study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Phytoplankton Dynamics and Water Quality in the Venice Lagoon

Aubry

Acri

Finotto

et al. 2021

Water

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We analyzed the phytoplankton abundance and community structure monthly over a 20-year period (1998–2017) at five stations in the Venice lagoon (VL), one of the sites belonging to the Long-Term Ecological Research network of Italy (LTER-Italy). We focused on phytoplankton seasonal patterns, inter-annual variability and long-term trends in relation to water quality. Diatoms numerically dominated (ca. 60% on average), followed by nanoflagellates (37%), while coccolithophorids and dinoflagellates contributed less than 2%. We observed distinct seasonal and inter-annual changes in the abundance and floristic composition of the phytoplankton groups, whilst no clear long-term trend was statistically significant. We also assessed the water quality changes, applying to our dataset the multimetric phytoplankton index (MPI), recently officially adopted by Italy to accomplish the water framework directive (WFD) requirements. The index evidenced a temporal improvement of the water quality from “moderate” to “good” and allowed us to confirm its reliability to address the changes in the water quality, not only spatially—as previously known—but also for following the yearly time trends. Overall, our results highlight the importance of long-term observations, for understanding the variability in the phytoplankton communities of the lagoon as well as the relevance of their use to test and apply synthetic descriptors of water quality, in compliance with the environmental directives.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Phytoplankton Dynamics and Water Quality in the Venice Lagoon

Aubry

Acri

Finotto

et al. 2021

Water

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“…autotrophy, mixotrophy, heterotrophy) because of its importance for phytoplankton fitness. While with microscopy each taxon can be assigned to a trophic role based on genus or species identification, with HTS this assignation is based on phylum or family level (Machado et al, 2019; Minicante et al, 2019). Furthermore in biodiversity assessments, the % contribution of phyla to the total community is often compared between microscopy and HTS (Eiler et al, 2013; Giner et al, 2016; Piredda et al, 2017; Wright et al, 2019; Xiao et al, 2014).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do inferences about freshwater phytoplankton communities change when based on microscopy or high‐throughput sequencing data?

2020

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Microscopy and high‐throughput sequencing (HTS) detect and quantify algae differently. It is not known if microscopy‐based abundance or biomass better compare to HTS data or how methodological differences affect ecological inferences about the phytoplankton communities studied. We investigated methodological (abundancemicroscopy vs. abundanceHTS, biomassmicroscopy vs. abundanceHTS), habitat (littoral, pelagic, deep hypolimnion), and year (2014 vs. 2017) differences for phytoplankton communities of Lake Tovel (Italy) using ANOVA. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that depending on comparing abundancemicroscopy or biomassmicroscopy to abundanceHTS different effects would be indicated; we called this the metric effect. Furthermore, using samples from 2014 to 2017, we investigated environment–community relationships by a redundancy analysis based on abundancemicroscopy, biomassmicroscopy, and abundanceHTS, and compared the results. Approximately 9 times more operational taxonomic units were reported with HTS (n2014 = 819, n2017 = 891) than algal taxa with microscopy (n2014 = 90, n2017 = 109) in 2014 and 2017. While microscopically assessed algal taxa were evenly distributed among phyla, the vast majority of operational taxonomic units were attributed to Chrysophyta (2014 = 54%, 2017 = 62%) and Bacillariophyta (2014 = 19%, 2017 = 17%). A metric effect for method differences was generally observed comparing abundancemicroscopy to abundanceHTS with Chlorophyta, Cryptophyta, and Dinophyta showing higher % abundance with microscopy while richness and Chrysophyta showed higher values with HTS. Almost no metric effects were found in 2014, but they were common across phyla in 2017. Bacillariophyta and Eustigmatophyta showed the same habitat differences when comparing biomassmicroscopy to abundanceHTS. Dinophyta showed habitat differences only with microscopy, while Chyrsophyta showed habitat differences only with HTS; these results were probably related to technical bias and strengths of HTS, respectively. Habitat differences of phyla were reasonably related to their ecological niche and linked to factors such as temperature and feeding preferences; furthermore, phyla often showed a significant 2014‐versus‐2017 year effect. The year 2014 was very wet while 2017 had a dry winter, and we attributed the patterns found to allochthonous nutrient input by rain and decreased turbulence. Redundancy analyses based on phytoplankton communities assessed with microscopy and HTS, respectively, equally indicated the importance of hydrology, nutrients, and temperature for phytoplankton communities and discriminated the littoral from the deep hypolimnion. However, variance explained was higher with HTS, and the pelagic was similar to the deep hypolimnion with microscopy but to the littoral with HTS. Despite the different strengths of microscopy and HTS for biodiversity assessment, both datasets outlined similar large‐scale patterns linked to strong environmental control of phytoplankton communities as they related to habitat...

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“…Surprisingly, higher phytoplankton diversity indices were observed during spring and fall, seasons where phytoplankton blooms are likely to occur in Mediterranean coastal ecosystems (Ribera d'Alcalà et al, 2004); algal blooms often being concomitant with low phytoplankton diversity (Lehtinen et al, 2017;Livingston, 2007). Phytoplankton diversity was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in offshore waters -16-relative to lagoon waters, contrasting that observed in other lagoons where phytoplankton diversity in the enclosed system can be higher (Srichandan et al, 2019) or equivalent (Minicante et al, 2019) to their adjacent waters. These contrasting results…”

Section: In Situ Phytoplankton and Bacterioplankton Diversitymentioning

confidence: 85%

Chemical contamination alters the interactions between bacteria and phytoplankton

et al. 2021

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Bacteria and phytoplankton are key players in aquatic ecosystem functioning. Their interactions mediate carbon transfer through the trophic web. Chemical contamination can alter the function and diversity of phytoplankton and bacterioplankton, with important consequences for ecosystem functioning. The aim of the present study was to assess the impact of chemical contamination on the interactions between both biological compartments. Two contrasting marine coastal ecosystems, offshore waters and lagoon waters, were exposed to chemical contamination (artificial or produced from resuspension of contaminated sediment) in microcosms in four seasons characterized by distinct phytoplankton communities. Offshore waters were characterized by a complex phytoplankton-bacterioplankton network with a predominance of positive interactions between both compartments, especially with Haptophyta, Cryptophyta, and dinoflagellates. In contrast, for lagoon waters, the phytoplankton-bacterioplankton network was simpler with a prevalence of negative interactions with Ochrophyta, Cryptophyta, and flagellates. Contamination with an artificial mix of pesticides and trace metal elements resulted in a decrease in the number of interactions between phytoplankton and bacterioplankton, especially for offshore waters. Resuspension of contaminated sediment also altered the interactions between both compartments. The release of nutrients stored in the sediment allowed the growth of nutrient limited phytoplankton species with marked consequences for the interactions with bacterioplankton, with a predominance of positive interactions, whereas in lagoon waters, negative interactions were mostly observed. Overall, this study showed that chemical contamination and sediment resuspension resulted in significant effects on phytoplankton-bacterioplankton interactions that can alter the functioning of anthropogenic coastal ecosystems.

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Habitat Heterogeneity and Connectivity: Effects on the Planktonic Protist Community Structure at Two Adjacent Coastal Sites (the Lagoon and the Gulf of Venice, Northern Adriatic Sea, Italy) Revealed by Metabarcoding

Cited by 27 publications

References 100 publications

Phytoplankton Dynamics and Water Quality in the Venice Lagoon

Phytoplankton Dynamics and Water Quality in the Venice Lagoon

Do inferences about freshwater phytoplankton communities change when based on microscopy or high‐throughput sequencing data?

Chemical contamination alters the interactions between bacteria and phytoplankton

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