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A molecular survey of freshwater microeukaryotes in an Arctic reservoir (Svalbard, 79°N) in summer by using next-generation sequencing

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Abstract

The molecular diversity of freshwater microeukaryotes, particularly phytoplankton, in the Arctic Svalbard, has been relatively unexplored. Freshwater algae are considered biological indicators of environmental change and can be useful in assessing the impact of global climate change and increased environmental pollution. In this study, freshwater microeukaryotes in an Arctic reservoir at Ny-Ǻlesund (Svalbard, Norway) were studied using the hypervariable V1–V3 small subunit rRNA and 454 pyrosequencing. On the basis of 8,956 reads, we revealed high genetic diversity in eukaryotes, representing all known eukaryotic supergroups, except Excavata. “Chromalveolata” (previously supergroup Chromalveolata) and Archaeplastida were the most and least abundant supergroups, respectively. After data mining, 57 phylotypes were detected from 7,398 pyrosequences. They were dominated by stramenopiles (84 %) and Dinoflagellata (13 %), with minor contributions from Cryptophyta, Chlorophyta, and Telonemida. The detection of algae belonging to the orders Mamiellales and Monomastigales provides a window into a fraction of the ‘rare biosphere’ that had previously been undetected in such environments. Interestingly, no haptophytes were recorded. Stramenopiles and Dinoflagellata mainly comprised taxa belonging to the families Chrysophyceae, Synurophyceae, and Dinophyceae. On the basis of the proportion of operational taxonomic units, the dominant phylotypes were found to include Ochromonas spp., Mallomonas spp., and Uroglena americana. These results demonstrate the significance of a chrysophyte-dominated microeukaryotic community, which is of great potential for future studies in terms of reconstruction of past climate trends and monitoring of environmental change in the Arctic.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which helped us to improve the quality of this manuscript. This work was supported by the “Polar Academic Program (PAP)” of the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) funded to Jang-Seu Ki, by the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology Research Fund (#PE99201), and by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2013R1A1A2013596).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Science, Sangmyung University, Seoul, 110-743, South Korea

    Thangavelu Boopathi, Daphne Georgina Faria, Man-Duck Lee & Jang-Seu Ki

  2. Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, Ansan-si, Gyeonggi-do, 426-744, South Korea

    Juyun Lee & Man Chang

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  1. Thangavelu Boopathi
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  2. Daphne Georgina Faria
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Correspondence to Jang-Seu Ki.

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Thangavelu Boopathi and Daphne Georgina Faria have equal contribution to this paper.

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Boopathi, T., Faria, D.G., Lee, MD. et al. A molecular survey of freshwater microeukaryotes in an Arctic reservoir (Svalbard, 79°N) in summer by using next-generation sequencing. Polar Biol 38, 179–187 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-014-1576-9

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