Research article
04 Jun 2013
Research article | 04 Jun 2013
Response of bacterioplankton community structure to an artificial gradient of pCO2 in the Arctic Ocean
R. Zhang1,2,*, X. Xia1,2,*, S. C. K. Lau3, C. Motegi4, M. G. Weinbauer4, and N. Jiao1,2
R. Zhang et al.
R. Zhang1,2,*, X. Xia1,2,*, S. C. K. Lau3, C. Motegi4, M. G. Weinbauer4, and N. Jiao1,2
- 1State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
- 2Institute of Marine Microbes and Ecospheres, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China
- 3Division of Life Science and Division of Environment, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
- 4Microbial Ecology and Biogeochemistry Group, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche, 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France; CNRS, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche, 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France
- *These authors contributed equally to this work.
- 1State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
- 2Institute of Marine Microbes and Ecospheres, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China
- 3Division of Life Science and Division of Environment, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
- 4Microbial Ecology and Biogeochemistry Group, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche, 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France; CNRS, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche, 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France
- *These authors contributed equally to this work.
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Received: 28 Jul 2012 – Discussion started: 09 Aug 2012 – Revised: 16 Apr 2013 – Accepted: 29 Apr 2013 – Published: 04 Jun 2013
In order to test the influences of ocean acidification on the ocean pelagic ecosystem, so far the largest CO2 manipulation mesocosm study (European Project on Ocean Acidification, EPOCA) was performed in Kings Bay (Kongsfjorden), Spitsbergen. During a 30 day incubation, bacterial diversity was investigated using DNA fingerprinting and clone library analysis of bacterioplankton samples. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis of the PCR amplicons of the 16S rRNA genes revealed that general bacterial diversity, taxonomic richness and community structure were influenced by the variation of productivity during the time of incubation, but not the degree of ocean acidification. A BIOENV analysis suggested a complex control of bacterial community structure by various biological and chemical environmental parameters. The maximum apparent diversity of bacterioplankton (i.e., the number of T-RFs) in high and low pCO2 treatments differed significantly. A negative relationship between the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes and pCO2 levels was observed for samples at the end of the experiment by the combination of T-RFLP and clone library analysis. Our study suggests that ocean acidification affects the development of bacterial assemblages and potentially impacts the ecological function of the bacterioplankton in the marine ecosystem.