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Molecular Detection and Spatiotemporal Characterization of Labyrinthulomycete Protist Diversity in the Coastal Waters Along the Pearl River Delta

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

The heterotrophic labyrinthulomycete protists have long been known to play an important role in the nutrient cycling of coastal seawater. Yet, their spatiotemporal abundance and diversity in polluted coastal waters remain poorly discussed, due in part to the paucity of a rapid detection method. To this end, we developed a qPCR detection method based on a newly designed primer pair targeting their 18S rRNA gene. Using this method, we studied the population dynamics of labyrinthulomycete protists in nutrient-rich (Shenzhen Bay) and low-nutrient (Daya) coastal habitats along the Pearl River Delta. We found a significantly (P < 0.05) higher abundance of Labyrinthulomycetes in the Shenzhen bay (average 3455 gene copies mL−1) than that in Daya Bay (average 378 gene copies mL−1). Their abundance gradient positively correlated (P < 0.05) with the levels of inorganic nitrogen and phosphates. Further characterization of the molecular diversity of these protists in Shenzhen Bay using different primer sets revealed the presence of several genera besides a large number of unclassified OTUs. Regardless of the primer biases, our results show significant (P < 0.05) spatiotemporal changes in the molecular abundance and diversity of these heterotrophic protists. Overall, this study provides a rapid molecular detection tool for Labyrinthulomycetes and expands our current understanding of their dynamics controlled by physicochemical gradients in coastal waters.

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Acknowledgments

The work was partially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (grant # 2017YFC1404500) and NSFC (grant # 31670044 and 91751115). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the funding agencies or any of its subagencies.

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Author notes

  1. Mohan Bai and Biswarup Sen contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Marine Environmental Ecology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Mohan Bai, Biswarup Sen, Qiuzhen Wang, Yunxuan Xie, Yaodong He & Guangyi Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Guangyi Wang

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  1. Mohan Bai
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Correspondence to Guangyi Wang.

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Bai, M., Sen, B., Wang, Q. et al. Molecular Detection and Spatiotemporal Characterization of Labyrinthulomycete Protist Diversity in the Coastal Waters Along the Pearl River Delta. Microb Ecol 77, 394–405 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-018-1235-8

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