Primer selection impacts specific population abundances but not community dynamics in a monthly time-series 16S rRNA gene amplicon analysis of coastal marine bacterioplankton.

ABSTRACT: Primers targeting the 16S small subunit ribosomal RNA marker gene, used to characterize bacterial and archaeal communities, have recently been re-evaluated for marine planktonic habitats. To investigate whether primer selection affects the ecological interpretation of bacterioplankton populations and community dynamics, amplicon sequencing with four primer sets targeting several hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene was conducted on both mock communities constructed from cloned 16S rRNA genes and a time-series of DNA samples from the temperate coastal Santa Barbara Channel. Ecological interpretations of community structure (delineation of depth and seasonality, correlations with environmental factors) were similar across primer sets, while population dynamics varied. We observed subst

SUBMITTER: Wear EK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6175402 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature