Unicellular cyanobacteria are important components of phytoplankton communities in Australia's northern oceanic ecoregions

Moore, LR; Huang, T; Ostrowski, M; Mazard, S; Kumar, SS; Gamage, HKAH; Brown, MV; Messer, LF; Seymour, JR; Paulsen, IT

Unicellular cyanobacteria are important components of phytoplankton communities in Australia's northern oceanic ecoregions

Moore, LR

Huang, T Ostrowski, M

Mazard, S Kumar, SS Gamage, HKAH

Brown, MV Messer, LF

Seymour, JR

Paulsen, IT

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Frontiers in Microbiology, 2019, 10 (JAN)
Issue Date:: 2019-01-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Moore, LR https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4114-1518	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Huang, T	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Ostrowski, M https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4357-3023	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Mazard, S	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Kumar, SS	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Gamage, HKAH https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9241-2349	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Brown, MV	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Messer, LF https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8335-2807	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Seymour, JR https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3745-6541	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Paulsen, IT	en_US
dc.date.available	2018-12-31	en_US
dc.date.issued	2019-01-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Frontiers in Microbiology, 2019, 10 (JAN)	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/130597
dc.description.abstract	© 2019 Moore, Huang, Ostrowski, Mazard, Kumar, Gamage, Brown, Messer, Seymour and Paulsen. The tropical marine environments of northern Australia encompasses a diverse range of geomorphological and oceanographic conditions and high levels of productivity and nitrogen fixation. However, efforts to characterize phytoplankton assemblages in these waters have been restricted to studies using microscopic and pigment analyses, leading to the current consensus that this region is dominated by large diatoms, dinoflagellates, and the marine cyanobacterium Trichodesmium. During an oceanographic transect from the Arafura Sea through the Torres Strait to the Coral Sea, we characterized prokaryotic and eukaryotic phytoplankton communities in surface waters using a combination of flow cytometry and Illumina based 16S and 18S ribosomal RNA amplicon sequencing. Similar to observations in other marine regions around Australian, phytoplankton assemblages throughout this entire region were rich in unicellular picocyanobacterial primary producers while picoeukaryotic phytoplankton formed a consistent, though smaller proportion of the photosynthetic biomass. Major taxonomic groups displayed distinct biogeographic patterns linked to oceanographic and nutrient conditions. Unicellular picocyanobacteria dominated in both flow cytometric abundance and carbon biomass, with members of the Synechococcus genus dominating in the shallower Arafura Sea and Torres Strait where chlorophyll a was relatively higher (averaging 0.4 ± 0.2 mg m-3), and Prochlorococcus dominating in the oligotrophic Coral Sea where chlorophyll a averaged 0.13 ± 0.07 mg m-3. Consistent with previous microscopic and pigment-based observations, we found from sequence analysis that a variety of diatoms (Bacillariophyceae) exhibited high relative abundance in the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait, while dinoflagellates (Dinophyceae) and prymnesiophytes (Prymnesiophyceae) were more abundant in the Coral Sea. Ordination analysis identified temperature, nutrient concentrations and water depth as key drivers of the region's assemblage composition. This is the first molecular and flow cytometric survey of the abundance and diversity of both prokaryotic and picoeukaryotic phytoplankton in this region, and points to the need to include the picocyanobacterial populations as an essential oceanic variable for sustained monitoring in order to better understand the health of these important coastal waters as global oceans change.	en_US
dc.relation	http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP120102764
dc.relation	http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT130100218
dc.relation	http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP150102326
dc.relation.ispartof	Frontiers in Microbiology	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.3389/fmicb.2018.03356	en_US
dc.title	Unicellular cyanobacteria are important components of phytoplankton communities in Australia's northern oceanic ecoregions	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	JAN	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	10	en_US
utslib.for	0605 Microbiology	en_US
utslib.for	0502 Environmental Science and Management	en_US
utslib.for	0503 Soil Sciences	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Science
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - C3 - Climate Change Cluster
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Students
utslib.copyright.status	open_access
pubs.issue	JAN	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	10	en_US

Abstract:

© 2019 Moore, Huang, Ostrowski, Mazard, Kumar, Gamage, Brown, Messer, Seymour and Paulsen. The tropical marine environments of northern Australia encompasses a diverse range of geomorphological and oceanographic conditions and high levels of productivity and nitrogen fixation. However, efforts to characterize phytoplankton assemblages in these waters have been restricted to studies using microscopic and pigment analyses, leading to the current consensus that this region is dominated by large diatoms, dinoflagellates, and the marine cyanobacterium Trichodesmium. During an oceanographic transect from the Arafura Sea through the Torres Strait to the Coral Sea, we characterized prokaryotic and eukaryotic phytoplankton communities in surface waters using a combination of flow cytometry and Illumina based 16S and 18S ribosomal RNA amplicon sequencing. Similar to observations in other marine regions around Australian, phytoplankton assemblages throughout this entire region were rich in unicellular picocyanobacterial primary producers while picoeukaryotic phytoplankton formed a consistent, though smaller proportion of the photosynthetic biomass. Major taxonomic groups displayed distinct biogeographic patterns linked to oceanographic and nutrient conditions. Unicellular picocyanobacteria dominated in both flow cytometric abundance and carbon biomass, with members of the Synechococcus genus dominating in the shallower Arafura Sea and Torres Strait where chlorophyll a was relatively higher (averaging 0.4 ± 0.2 mg m-3), and Prochlorococcus dominating in the oligotrophic Coral Sea where chlorophyll a averaged 0.13 ± 0.07 mg m-3. Consistent with previous microscopic and pigment-based observations, we found from sequence analysis that a variety of diatoms (Bacillariophyceae) exhibited high relative abundance in the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait, while dinoflagellates (Dinophyceae) and prymnesiophytes (Prymnesiophyceae) were more abundant in the Coral Sea. Ordination analysis identified temperature, nutrient concentrations and water depth as key drivers of the region's assemblage composition. This is the first molecular and flow cytometric survey of the abundance and diversity of both prokaryotic and picoeukaryotic phytoplankton in this region, and points to the need to include the picocyanobacterial populations as an essential oceanic variable for sustained monitoring in order to better understand the health of these important coastal waters as global oceans change.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/130597