Short‐term dynamics of diversity patterns: evidence of continual reassembly within lacustrine small eukaryotes

TLDR

The study raises open questions about the patterns driving rapid small eukaryote reassemblies and their biogeography. The authors monitored small eukaryote community dynamics every 2–3 days over a summer using 454 pyrosequencing, qPCR, and TSA‑FISH. Pyrosequencing revealed 991 OTUs, most rare, with a core of 20 taxa undergoing continual reassembly driven by intermediate‑abundance OTUs, including bacterivorous, parasitic, and saprotrophic groups, and the first reported perkinsozoan infection of microalgae.

Abstract

The short-term variation in the community structure of freshwater small eukaryotes (0.2-5 μm) was investigated in a mesotrophic lake every 2-3 days over one summer by coupling three molecular methods: 454 amplicon pyrosequencing, qPCR and TSA-FISH. The pyrosequencing approach unveiled a much more extensive small-eukaryotic diversity (991 OTUs) than has been described previously. The vast majority of the diversity described was represented by rare OTUs (≤ 0.01% of reads) belonging primarily to Cryptomycota, Dikarya and photosynthetic organisms, which were never detected as abundant in any of the samples. The small eukaryote community was characterized by a continual and important reassembly. These rearrangements involved the 20 'core taxa' (≥ 1% of reads), and, were essentially due to a handful of OTUs that were detected in intermediate abundance (0.01-1% of reads) and sporadically in dominant taxa. Putative bacterivorous (Ciliophora and Cercozoa) as well as parasitic and saprotrophic taxa (Perkinsozoa and Cryptomycota) were involved in these changes of diversity. A putative infection of microalgae by a lacustrine perkinsozoan was also reported for the first time in this study. Open questions regarding both the patterns that govern the rapid small eukaryote reassemblies and the possible biogeography of these organisms arise from this study.