Abstract
The Lianjiang coast in the East China Sea is a typical subtropical marine ecosystem, and shellfish cultivation occupies almost all of the available tidal flats. Many studies have investigated the effects of shellfish cultivation on benthic organisms and sediments, while the impact of shellfish cultivation on plankton ecosystems is still poorly understood. This study investigated the biogeographical patterns of microeukaryotic communities from Lianjiang coastal waters in four seasons using 18S ribosomal RNA gene amplicon sequencing. Microeukaryotes were mainly comprised of Dinoflagellata, Diatomea, Arthropoda, Ciliophora, Chlorophyta, Protalveolata, Cryptophyceae, and Ochrophyta, and presented significant differences in three habitats (the aquaculture area, confluent area, and offshore area) and four seasons. Similarity percentage analysis revealed that Paracalanus parvus, Heterocapsa rotundata, Bestiolina similis, and five additional key taxa contributed to spatio-temporal differences. Seasonal environmental and spatial factors explained 27.47% of microeukaryotic community variation on average, with 11.11% of the variation shared. Environmental variables, particularly depth, pH, and nitrite concentration, were strongly associated with the microeukaryotic community compositions. The neutral community model further demonstrated that stochastic processes were sufficient in shaping substantial variation in microeukaryotic communities across four seasons, which may reveal the remaining unexplained microeukaryotic community variation. We further divided four seasons into the aquaculture stages and non-aquaculture stages, and speculated that aquaculture activities may increase the dispersal limitation of microeukaryotes in coastal waters, especially for the big bodied-microbes like Arthropoda. The results provide a better understanding of the biogeographical patterns, processes, and mechanisms of microeukaryotic communities near shellfish cultivation.
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This work was supported financially by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFD0900702), the Natural Science Foundation of Ningbo (2022J195), the Public Welfare Science and Technology Project of Ningbo (2022S116), and K.C. Wong Magna Fund in Ningbo University (SS).
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QS and CZ conceptualized the study and designed the experiment. QS performed the statistical analysis and wrote the manuscript with contributions from CZ and XY. ZL, ZX, and ZZ participated in the research cruise and collected data. CZ and XY approved the final version of the manuscript. All the authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
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Shao, Q., Lin, Z., Xu, Z. et al. Integrated Biogeography and Assembly Mechanisms of Microeukaryotic Communities in Coastal Waters Near Shellfish Cultivation. Microb Ecol 86, 2560–2573 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-023-02256-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-023-02256-0