Patterns of rare and abundant marine microbial eukaryotes.
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.
Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM), CSIC, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: ramiro.logares@gmail.com.
Ramiro
R
Logares
ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Stéphane
S
Audic
Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK.
David
D
Bass
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.
Lucie
L
Bittner
ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Christophe
C
Boutte
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.
Richard
R
Christen
IGS UMR 7256, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, 13288 Marseille, France.
Jean-Michel
JM
Claverie
ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Johan
J
Decelle
LOV UMR 7093, CNRS, UPMC Paris 06, 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France.
John R
JR
Dolan
Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Micah
M
Dunthorn
Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1066 Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway.
Bente
B
Edvardsen
ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Angélique
A
Gobet
Ecology and Evolution of Plankton, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Villa Comunale 1, 80121 Naples, Italy.
Wiebe H C F
WH
Kooistra
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.
Frédéric
F
Mahé
ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Fabrice
F
Not
IGS UMR 7256, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, 13288 Marseille, France; Education Academy of Computational Life Sciences, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan.
Hiroyuki
H
Ogata
Department of Genetics and Evolution, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
Jan
J
Pawlowski
Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM), CSIC, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.
Massimo C
MC
Pernice
ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Sarah
S
Romac
Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1066 Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway.
Kamran
K
Shalchian-Tabrizi
ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Nathalie
N
Simon
Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Thorsten
T
Stoeck
IGS UMR 7256, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, 13288 Marseille, France.
Sébastien
S
Santini
Ifremer, Centre de Brest, DYNECO/Pelagos BP70, 29280 Plouzané, France.
Raffaele
R
Siano
CEA, Genoscope, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, 91000 Evry, France.
Patrick
P
Wincker
Ecology and Evolution of Plankton, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Villa Comunale 1, 80121 Naples, Italy.
Adriana
A
Zingone
Biosciences, University of Exeter, Geoffrey Pope Building, Exeter EX4 4QD, UK.
Thomas A
TA
Richards
ADMM UMR 7144, UPMC Paris 06, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France; ADMM UMR 7144, CNRS, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29682 Roscoff, France.
Colomban
C
de Vargas
Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM), CSIC, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.
Ramon
R
Massana
D001267:Atlantic Ocean; D001483:Base Sequence; D044822:Biodiversity; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D056890:Eukaryota / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D005060:Europe; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D008386:Marine Biology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008522:Mediterranean Sea; D064307:Microbiota / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009659:North Sea; D010802:Phylogeny; D011156:Population Density; D012337:RNA, Ribosomal, 18S / Q000235:genetics; D013045:Species Specificity
D012337:RNA, Ribosomal, 18S