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Distribution and phenogenetic diversity of Synechococcus in the Bohai Sea, China

  • Ecology
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Abstract

Synechococcus is one of the most abundant picocyanobacteria in marine ecosystem, and the absence of Prochlorococcus would make it indispensable as a primary producer in the Bohai Sea, North China. However, the abundance distribution and genetic diversity of Synechococcus in this region have rarely been reported. In this study, the distribution pattern of Synechococcus abundance was investigated during four cruises in April, June, August, and November from 2018 to 2019, moreover, its phenogenetic diversity was studied based on high-throughput sequencing of the cpeBA operon. The results demonstrate that phycoerythrin-containing Synechococcus was most abundant in August when temperature was high and oxygen saturation was low. During this period, Synechococcus pigment type (PT) 2 was abundant in the Bohai Bay and Laizhou Bay under conditions of high nutrient concentration, temperature, and turbidity. In comparison, PT3, especially those clusters characterized with high or variable ratio of phycourobilin and phycoerythrobilin, was predominant in the Bohai Strait and Liaodong Bay under conditions of high salinity, pH, and oxygen saturation. Furthermore, co-occurrence correlations using network analysis revealed that Synechococcus PTs were related to 15.37%–43.48% of the prokaryotic genera. Synechococcus PT3c/PT3d and PT2 were the most important PTs in the network. The hierarchical clustering revealed that taxa co-occurred with Synechococcus PTs differed among samples. It could be attributed to the substance exchange and the environmental impact, which calls for more studies in the future.

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Data Availability Statement

The sequence data of this study were deposited in the sequence read archive of NCBI (US National Center for Biotechnology Information; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). A bio-project associated with this study was applied for and processed in NCBI with the accession number PRJNA 688318. All raw sequencing data were stored under this accession number.

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Acknowledgment

The samples were collected by R/V Chuangxin I. We acknowledge the assistance from the Engineering and Technical Service, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for organizing research voyages and sharing open data. We extend our gratitude to the journal reviewers for their comments and suggestions, which helped in significantly improving the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Ting Wang

  2. Key Lab of Coastal Biology and Biological Resource Utilization, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai, 264003, China

    Ting Wang, Jialin Li & Song Qin

  3. College of Marine Life Science, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266005, China

    Xi Chen

  4. Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Jialin Li & Song Qin

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  1. Ting Wang
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  2. Xi Chen
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Correspondence to Jialin Li.

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Supported by the Key Deployment Project of Centre for Ocean Mega-Research of Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. COMS2020Q09), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFD0901102), and the Science and Technology program of Yantai (No. 2017ZH095)

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Wang, T., Chen, X., Li, J. et al. Distribution and phenogenetic diversity of Synechococcus in the Bohai Sea, China. J. Ocean. Limnol. 40, 592–604 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-021-1005-1

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