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An approach to bioassess pelagic ciliate biodiversity at different taxonomic resolutions in response to various habitats in the Amundsen Sea (Antarctica)

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Abstract

The rapid melting of glaciers and loss of sea ice will result in changes in habitat conditions that may drive substantial changes in biodiversity. In order to bioassess the changing polar ecosystem and evaluate biological conservation, pelagic ciliate communities at different taxonomic resolutions were studied at five habitats in the Amundsen Sea during the austral summer from December 2010 to January 2011. Distinctive spatial patterns were observed in the communities among the five habitats (oceanic areas, transitional areas, polynyas, edges of glaciers, and edges of sea ice) in response to environmental variability (e.g., temperature, salinity, chlorophyll a, and nutrients). The distributions in the numbers of different taxonomic levels and of three biodiversity indices (Shannon-Wiener H′, Pielou’s J′, and Margalef D) also revealed clear spatial variability with the maximum mean species number and indices in the polynya and maximum genus and family numbers in the transitional area. The presence/absence of data at taxonomic resolutions up to the family level provided sufficient information to evaluate the ecological patterns of pelagic ciliate communities and could accurately reflect habitat variations. The k-dominance curves illustrated clearly that maximum diversity was presented in the polynya at the species level and in the transitional area at the genus and family level. We suggest that the diversity at higher taxonomic resolutions should be considered more in future monitoring. Our findings provide basic data and an approach toward answering important questions about biological conservation, especially the biodiversity at various taxonomic resolutions in response to the increasing climate changes in polar ecosystems.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Korea Polar Research Institute project (KOPRI; PP15020), the Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 31500339), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant (no. 2015M570612), and Chinese National Antarctica Research Expedition Project (CHINARE2012-2015). Partial support was provided by grants from the K-PORT Program (KOPRI; PM15040) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Korea. We thank the captain and crew of the Korean Research Icebreaker, Araon, for their outstanding assistance during the cruise and Dong-Jin Lee for his great help with sampling, sample processing, and data collection. We greatly appreciate the constructive comments by anonymous reviewers, which dramatically improved the quality of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Marine Life Science, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, People’s Republic of China

    Yong Jiang, Qian Liu & Min Wang

  2. Division of Polar Ocean Environment, Korea Polar Research Institute, 213-3 Songdo-dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, 406-840, Republic of Korea

    Yong Jiang, Eun Jin Yang, Youngju Lee & SangHoon Lee

  3. Key Lab of Polar Oceanography and Global Ocean Change, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, People’s Republic of China

    Yong Jiang & Min Wang

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  1. Yong Jiang
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Correspondence to Eun Jin Yang.

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Jiang, Y., Liu, Q., Yang, E.J. et al. An approach to bioassess pelagic ciliate biodiversity at different taxonomic resolutions in response to various habitats in the Amundsen Sea (Antarctica). Polar Biol 39, 485–495 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-015-1801-1

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