Drivers of microbial food-web structure along productivity gradients

Abstract

Ratios between viruses, heterotrophic prokaryotes and chlorophyll a are key indicators of microbial food structure and both virus–prokaryote and prokaryote–chlorophyll ratios have been proposed to decrease with system productivity. However, the mechanisms underlying these responses are still insufficiently resolved and their consistency across aquatic ecosystem types requires critical evaluation. We assessed microbial community ratios in highly productive African soda-lakes and used our data from naturally hypereutrophic systems which are largely underrepresented in literature, to complement earlier across-system meta-analyses. In contrast to marine and freshwater systems, prokaryote–chlorophyll ratios in African soda-lakes did not decrease along productivity gradients. High-resolution time series from two soda-lakes indicated that this lack of response could be driven by a weakened top–down control of heterotrophic prokaryotes. Our analysis of virus–prokaryote relationships, revealed a reduction of virus–prokaryote ratios by high suspended particle concentrations in soda-lakes. This effect, likely driven by the adsorption of free-living viruses, was also found in three out of four additionally analysed marine datasets. However, the decrease of virus–prokaryote ratios previously reported in highly productive marine systems, was neither detectable in soda-lakes nor freshwaters. Hence, our study demonstrates that system-specific analyses can reveal the diversity of mechanisms that structure microbial food-webs and shape their response to productivity increases.