Phylogenetic and functional diversity of bacterioplankton during Alexandrium spp. blooms.
The phylogenetic and functional diversity of the bacterioplankton assemblage associated with blooms of toxic Alexandrium spp. was studied in three harbours of the NW Mediterranean. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and DNA sequence analysis revealed the presence of a bacterium within the Roseobacter clade related to the presence of Alexandrium cells. Phylogenetic diversity was affected by the presence of Alexandrium spp., geographic situation and seasonality. In contrast, functional diversity, assessed with Biolog plates, was clearly affected by seasonality, but not by the presence of Alexandrium, indicating that the presence of the bacterium associated with the blooms was not enough to modify the metabolic pattern of the bacterioplankton assemblage.
Sala
Maria Montserrat
MM
Departament de Biologia Marina i Oceanografia, Institut de Ciències del Mar-CMIMA CSIC, P. Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain. msala@icm.csic.es
Balagué
Vanessa
V
Pedrós-Alió
Carlos
C
Massana
Ramon
R
Felipe
Jordi
J
Arin
Laura
L
Illoul
Hassina
H
Estrada
Marta
M
D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000378:metabolism; D004141:Dinoflagellida / Q000382:microbiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D010933:Plankton / Q000145:classification* / Q000502:physiology