Patterns of rare and abundant marine microbial eukaryotes.

Logares R; Audic S; Bass D; Bittner L; Boutte C; Christen R; Claverie JM; Decelle J; Dolan JR; Dunthorn M; Edvardsen B; Gobet A; Kooistra WH; Mahé F; Not F; Ogata H; Pawlowski J; Pernice MC; Romac S; Shalchian-Tabrizi K; Simon N; Stoeck T; Santini S; Siano R; Wincker P; Zingone A; Richards TA; de Vargas C; Massana R

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.02.050

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Journal article

Patterns of rare and abundant marine microbial eukaryotes.

Logares R Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM), CSIC, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: ramiro.logares@gmail.com.
Audic S ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Bass D Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK.
Bittner L ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Boutte C ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Christen R SAE UMR 7138, CNRS, Parc Valrose BP71, 06108 Nice Cedex 02, France; SAE UMR 7138, Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis, Parc Valrose BP71, 06108 Nice Cedex 02, France.
Claverie JM IGS UMR 7256, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, 13288 Marseille, France.
Decelle J ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Dolan JR LOV UMR 7093, CNRS, UPMC Paris 06, 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France.
Dunthorn M Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Edvardsen B Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1066 Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway.
Gobet A ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Kooistra WH Ecology and Evolution of Plankton, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Villa Comunale 1, 80121 Naples, Italy.
Mahé F ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Not F ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Ogata H IGS UMR 7256, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, 13288 Marseille, France; Education Academy of Computational Life Sciences, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan.
Pawlowski J Department of Genetics and Evolution, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
Pernice MC Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM), CSIC, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.
Romac S ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Shalchian-Tabrizi K Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1066 Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway.
Simon N ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Stoeck T Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Santini S IGS UMR 7256, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, 13288 Marseille, France.
Siano R Ifremer, Centre de Brest, DYNECO/Pelagos BP70, 29280 Plouzané, France.
Wincker P CEA, Genoscope, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, 91000 Evry, France.
Zingone A Ecology and Evolution of Plankton, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Villa Comunale 1, 80121 Naples, Italy.
Richards TA Biosciences, University of Exeter, Geoffrey Pope Building, Exeter EX4 4QD, UK.
de Vargas C ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Massana R Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM), CSIC, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.

2014-04-08

Published in:

Current biology : CB. - 2014

High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing

English BACKGROUND
Biological communities are normally composed of a few abundant and many rare species. This pattern is particularly prominent in microbial communities, in which most constituent taxa are usually extremely rare. Although abundant and rare subcommunities may present intrinsic characteristics that could be crucial for understanding community dynamics and ecosystem functioning, microbiologists normally do not differentiate between them. Here, we investigate abundant and rare subcommunities of marine microbial eukaryotes, a crucial group of organisms that remains among the least-explored biodiversity components of the biosphere. We surveyed surface waters of six separate coastal locations in Europe, independently considering the picoplankton, nanoplankton, and microplankton/mesoplankton organismal size fractions.

RESULTS
Deep Illumina sequencing of the 18S rRNA indicated that the abundant regional community was mostly structured by organismal size fraction, whereas the rare regional community was mainly structured by geographic origin. However, some abundant and rare taxa presented similar biogeography, pointing to spatiotemporal structure in the rare microeukaryote biosphere. Abundant and rare subcommunities presented regular proportions across samples, indicating similar species-abundance distributions despite taxonomic compositional variation. Several taxa were abundant in one location and rare in other locations, suggesting large oscillations in abundance. The substantial amount of metabolically active lineages found in the rare biosphere suggests that this subcommunity constitutes a diversity reservoir that can respond rapidly to environmental change.

CONCLUSIONS
We propose that marine planktonic microeukaryote assemblages incorporate dynamic and metabolically active abundant and rare subcommunities, with contrasting structuring patterns but fairly regular proportions, across space and time.

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