Toxigenic effects of two benthic diatoms upon grazing activity of the sea urchin: morphological, metabolomic and de novo transcriptomic analysis.

ABSTRACT: Diatoms are unicellular algae playing a key role as photosynthetic organisms in the world's ocean food webs. The chemical ecology of planktonic diatoms is well documented, but few studies have reported on the effects of benthic diatoms on their consumers, also due to difficulties in the collection, quantification and massive culturing of benthic species. Here for the first time we investigate the effects of feeding on two abundantly occurring benthic diatoms, Nanofrustulum shiloi and Cylindrotheca closterium, isolated from the leaves of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica, on the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus. Adult P. lividus were fed for one month on diets of either one of the two diatoms and on the green alga Ulva rigida, used as a feeding control. By combining morphological, metabolomic

SUBMITTER: Ruocco N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5884808 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature