Journal
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
Volume 4, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00016
Keywords
microzooplankon; 18S rRNA pyrosequencing; interannual variability; indicator species; Arctic ice loss
Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Network of Centers of Excellence ArcticNet
- NSERC Discovery grants
- ArcticNet funding
- Uniyersite Laval
- Canadian Excellence Research Chair Remote Sensing of Canada's New Arctic Frontier (CERC) grant
- Fonds de recherche du Quebec Nature et Technologies (FRQNT)
- Compute Canada
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Recent studies have focused on how climate change could drive changes in phytoplankton communities in the Arctic. In contrast, ciliates and dinoflagellates that can contribute substantially to the mortality of phytoplankton have received less attention. Some dinoflagellate and ciliate species can also contribute to net photosynthesis, which suggests that species composition could reflect food web complexity. To identify potential seasonal and annual species occurrence patterns and to link species with environmental conditions, we first examined the seasonal pattern of microzooplankton and then performed an in-depth analysis of interannual species variability. We used high-throughput amplicon sequencing to identify ciliates and dinoflagellates to the lowest taxonomic level using a curated Arctic 18S rRNA gene database. DNA- and RNA-derived reads were generated from samples collected from the Canadian Arctic from November 2007 to July 2008. The proportion of ciliate reads increased in the surface toward summer, when salinity was lower and smaller phytoplankton prey were abundant, while chloroplastidic dinoflagellate species increased at the subsurface chlorophyll maxima (SCM), where inorganic nutrient concentrations were higher. Comparing communities collected in summer and fall from 2003 to 2010, we found that microzooplankton community composition change was associated with the record ice minimum in the summer of 2007. Specifically, reads from smaller predatory species like Laboea, Monodinium, and Strombidium and several unclassified ciliates increased in the summer after 2007, while the other usually summer-dominant dinoflagellate taxa decreased. The ability to exploit smaller prey, which are predicted to dominate the future Arctic, could be an advantage for these smaller ciliates in the wake of the changing climate.
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