Publication Date:
2014-04-23
Description:
Knowledge about the protist diversity of the
Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean is scarce. We tested
the hypothesis that distinct protist community assemblages
characterize large-scale water masses. Therefore, we
determined the composition and biogeography of late
summer protist assemblages along a transect from the coast
of New Zealand to the eastern Ross Sea. We used state of
the art molecular approaches, such as automated ribosomal
intergenic spacer analysis and 454-pyrosequencing, combined
with high-performance liquid chromatography pigment
analysis to study the protist assemblage. We found
distinct biogeographic patterns defined by the environmental
conditions in the particular region. Different water
masses harbored different microbial communities. In contrast
to the Arctic Ocean, picoeukaryotes had minor
importance throughout the investigated transect and
showed very low contribution south of the Polar Front.
Dinoflagellates, Syndiniales, and small stramenopiles were
dominating the sequence assemblage in the Subantarctic
Zone, whereas the relative abundance of diatoms increased
southwards, in the Polar Frontal Zone and Antarctic Zone.
South of the Polar Front, most sequences belonged to haptophytes.
This study delivers a comprehensive and taxon
detailed overview of the protist composition in the investigated
area during the austral summer 2010.
Repository Name:
EPIC Alfred Wegener Institut
Type:
Article
,
isiRev
Format:
application/pdf
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