Unicellular Eukaryotic Community Response to Temperature and Salinity Variation in Mesocosm Experiments.

ABSTRACT: Climate change has profound impacts on marine biodiversity and biodiversity changes in turn might affect the community sensitivity to impacts of abiotic changes. We used mesocosm experiments and Next Generation Sequencing to study the response of the natural Baltic and Mediterranean unicellular eukaryotic plankton communities (control and +6°C heat shock) to subsequent salinity changes (-5 psu, +5 psu). The impact on Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU) richness, taxonomic and functional composition and rRNA:rDNA ratios were examined. Our results showed that heat shock leads to lower OTU richness (21% fewer OTUs in the Baltic and 14% fewer in the Mediterranean) and a shift in composition toward pico- and nanophytoplankton and heterotrophic related OTUs. Heat shock also leads to increased rRNA:

SUBMITTER: Stefanidou N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6189394 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature