Premium
Coupling between taxonomic and functional diversity in protistan coastal communities
Author(s) -
Ramond Pierre,
Sourisseau Marc,
Simon Nathalie,
Romac Sarah,
Schmitt Sophie,
RigautJalabert Fabienne,
Henry Nicolas,
Vargas Colomban,
Siano Raffaele
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
environmental microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.954
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1462-2920
pISSN - 1462-2912
DOI - 10.1111/1462-2920.14537
Subject(s) - biology , protist , ecology , taxonomic rank , picoplankton , trait , evolutionary biology , ecosystem , biodiversity , marine ecosystem , beta diversity , diversity (politics) , phytoplankton , taxon , gene , nutrient , genetics , sociology , computer science , anthropology , programming language
Summary The study of protistan functional diversity is crucial to understand the dynamics of oceanic ecological processes. We combined the metabarcoding data of various coastal ecosystems and a newly developed trait‐based approach to study the link between taxonomic and functional diversity across marine protistan communities of different size‐classes. Environmental DNA was extracted and the V4 18S rDNA genomic region was amplified and sequenced. In parallel, we tried to annotate the operational taxonomic units (OTUs) from our metabarcoding dataset to 30 biological traits using published and accessible information on protists. We then developed a method to study trait correlations across protists (i.e. trade‐offs) in order to build the best functional groups. Based on the annotated OTUs and our functional groups, we demonstrated that the functional diversity of marine protist communities varied in parallel with their taxonomic diversity. The coupling between functional and taxonomic diversity was conserved across different protist size classes. However, the smallest size‐fraction was characterized by wider taxonomic and functional groups diversity, corroborating the idea that nanoplankton and picoplankton are part of a more stable ecological background on which larger protists and metazoans might develop.