Differences in the Composition of Abundant Marine Picoeukaryotes in the Marginal Sea Derived from Flooding

Abstract

The transient impact of flooding on the community composition of marine picoeukaryotes (PEs, cell size ≤5 μm) in the East China Sea (ECS) was revealed in this study. In a summer without flooding (i.e., July 2009), photosynthetic picoeukaryotes (PPEs) were more abundant in the area covered by the Changjiang River diluted water (CDW, salinity ≤31) than in the non-CDW affected area. According to the 18S ribosomal RNA phylogeny, Alveolata (all from the superclass Dinoflagellata) was the main community component accounting for 72 to 99% of the community at each sampling station during the nonflooded summer. In addition to Dinoflagellata, diatoms or Chlorophyta also contributed a considerable proportion to the PE assemblage at the stations close to the edge of CDW coverage. In July 2010, an extreme flooding event occurred in the Changjiang River basin and led to the CDW covering nearly half of the ECS. In the flooded summer, the abundance of PPEs in the CDW-covered area decreased significantly to less than 1 × 104 cells ml-1. Compared to that during the nonflooded summer, the diversity of the PE composition was increased. While Dinophyceae still dominated the surface waters, Syndiniophyceae, which were represented by the uncultured Marine Alveolata Group (MALV)-I and MALV-II, accounted for a substantial amount in the Dinoflagellata superclass relative to this community composition in the nonflooded summer. Furthermore, a variety of plankton, including Cryptophyta, Haptophyta, Picobiliphyta, the uncultured Marine Stramenopiles (MASTs) and heterotrophic nanoflagellates, were observed. The nutrition modes of these PEs have been reported to be mixotrophic or heterotrophic. Therefore, it was inferred that the potentially mixotrophic and heterotrophic PE compositions might be favored in the marginal sea in the flooded summer.