Thermal discharge-created increasing temperatures alter the bacterioplankton composition and functional redundancy

Xiong, Jinbo; Xiong, Shangling; Peng, Qian; Zhang, Demin; Liu, Lian; Fei, Yuejun

doi:10.1186/s13568-016-0238-4

Cited by 24 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(108 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, the higher level of disorder in biological and environmental conditions created by faster metabolic kinetics and irregular molecular movement in summer seawater may also contribute to the enhanced stochasticity of the bacterioplankton assembly (11,19,58) and make bacterioplankton assembly more difficult to predict on the basis of environmental and geographic factors in summer than in winter seawater. Our results also revealed strong mixed effects of temperature and geographic distance in both seasons, emphasizing that marine bacterioplankton assembly was determined by spatially structured environmental gradients (16,59).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 51%

“…Thermal effluents had significant impact on bacterioplankton community structure; however, the effect differed by season. High heterogeneity of bacterioplankton community structure was detected across the thermal gradients and between seasons, even at coarse levels of taxonomic resolution, reflecting the different environmental optima of bacterioplankton taxa across the thermal gradients and between seasons (34)(35)(36)(37) or differences in the intensity of water warming (16). In findings similar to our winter results, decreased relative abundances of Alphaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria in warmer waters were also observed by Xiong et al (16) and Von Scheibner et al (38) in investigations of water temperatures from about 20°C to 30°C.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…High heterogeneity of bacterioplankton community structure was detected across the thermal gradients and between seasons, even at coarse levels of taxonomic resolution, reflecting the different environmental optima of bacterioplankton taxa across the thermal gradients and between seasons (34)(35)(36)(37) or differences in the intensity of water warming (16). In findings similar to our winter results, decreased relative abundances of Alphaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria in warmer waters were also observed by Xiong et al (16) and Von Scheibner et al (38) in investigations of water temperatures from about 20°C to 30°C. In addition, we showed that high temperatures of Ͻ38°C promoted the relative abundance of Cyanobacteria (primarily Synechococcus), supporting previous observations that temperature was an important factor influencing Synechococcus distribution and was positively correlated with the abundance of Synechococcus when the temperature was in an adaptive range (39,40).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies suggest that thermal effluents have profound impacts on bacterioplankton metabolism abilities and that the effects are dependent on the season (13)(14)(15). Bacterioplankton community compositions (BCCs) subject to thermal effects, however, have rarely been examined by use of high-throughput sequencing, except for a recent study showing that thermal effluents from a coal power plant (water temperature, 15.0 to 18.6°C) had significant effects on marine spring BCCs (16). The habitats with more thermal effluents had lower relative abundances of Alphaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria but higher relative abundances of Cyanobacteria (16).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bacterioplankton community compositions (BCCs) subject to thermal effects, however, have rarely been examined by use of high-throughput sequencing, except for a recent study showing that thermal effluents from a coal power plant (water temperature, 15.0 to 18.6°C) had significant effects on marine spring BCCs (16). The habitats with more thermal effluents had lower relative abundances of Alphaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria but higher relative abundances of Cyanobacteria (16). Our knowledge about the thermal impact of nuclear power plants on BCCs is thus inadequate.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Bacterioplankton Metacommunity Processes across Thermal Gradients: Weaker Species Sorting but Stronger Niche Segregation in Summer than in Winter in a Subtropical Bay

Ren

Song

et al. 2019

Appl Environ Microbiol

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Thermal effluents from nuclear power plants greatly change the environmental and ecological conditions of the receiving marine water body, but knowledge about their impact on microbial ecology is limited. Here we used high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene to examine marine bacterioplankton metacommunity assembly across thermal gradients in two representative seasons (i.e., winter and summer) in a subtropical bay located on the northern coast of the South China Sea. We found high heterogeneity in bacterioplankton community compositions (BCCs) across thermal gradients and between seasons. The spatially structured temperature gradient created by thermal effluents was the key determinant of BCCs, but its influence differed by season. Using a metacommunity approach, we found that in the thermal discharge area, i.e., where water is frequently exchanged with surrounding seawater and thermal effluent water, the BCC spatial patterns were shaped by species sorting rather than by mass effects from surrounding seawater or by dilution of thermal effluent water by surrounding seawater. However, this effect of species sorting was weaker in summer than in winter seawater. In both seasons, the bacterioplankton community structure was predominately determined by niche sharing; however, the relative importance of niche segregation was enhanced in summer seawater. Our findings suggest that for the seasonal differences in metacommunity processes, the BCCs of subtropical summer seawater were more sensitive to temperature and were more difficult to predict than those of winter seawater in the face of different intensities of thermal impacts. IMPORTANCE Understanding the mechanisms of bacterial community assembly across environmental gradients is one of the major goals of marine microbial ecology. Thermal effluents from two nuclear power plants have been present in the subtropical Daya Bay for more than 20 years and have generated a comparatively stable and long thermal gradient (a temperature increase from 0 to 10°C). The environmental patches across thermal gradients are heterogeneous and very strongly interconnected on a microbial scale; thus, this is a useful model for the study of the metacommunity processes (i.e., patch dynamics, species sorting, mass effects, and neutral processes) that underlie marine bacterioplankton assembly. The significance of our research is to reveal how environmental conditions and dispersal-related processes interact to influence bacterioplankton metacommunity processes and their seasonal differences across thermal gradients. Our results may advance the understanding of marine microbial ecology under future conditions of global warming.

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