Latitudinal gradients and ocean fronts strongly influence protist communities in the southern Pacific Ocean.

ABSTRACT: Protist communities in the southern Pacific Ocean make a major contribution to global biogeochemical cycling, but remain understudied due to their remote location. We therefore have limited understanding of how large-scale physical gradients (e.g. temperature) and mesoscale oceanographic features (e.g. fronts) influence microeukaryote diversity in this region. We performed a high-resolution examination of protist communities along a latitudinal transect (>3000 km) at 150°W in the central southern Pacific Ocean that encompassed major frontal regions, including the subtropical front (STF), the subantarctic front (SAF), and the polar front (PF). We identified distinct microbial communities along the transect that were primarily delineated by the positions of the STF and PF. Some taxa were not

SUBMITTER: Sturm D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11653569 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature