Rapid changes in coastal ocean microbiomes uncoupled with shifts in environmental variables

Summary Disturbances, here defined as events that directly alter microbial community composition, are commonly studied in host‐associated and engineered systems. In spite of global change both altering environmental averages and increasing extreme events, there has been relatively little research in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental microbiology 2022-09, Vol.24 (9), p.4167-4177
Main Authors: Gronniger, Jessica L., Wang, Zhao, Brandt, Genevieve R., Ward, Christopher S., Tsementzi, Despina, Mu, Han, Gu, Junyao, Johnson, Zackary I., Konstantinidis, Konstantinos T., Hunt, Dana E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blooms
Community composition
Composition
Disturbance
Disturbances
Ecosystem disturbance
Environmental changes
Environmental factors
Genes
Hurricanes
Microbiomes
Microorganisms
Outliers (statistics)
Phages
Phytoplankton
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Summary:Summary Disturbances, here defined as events that directly alter microbial community composition, are commonly studied in host‐associated and engineered systems. In spite of global change both altering environmental averages and increasing extreme events, there has been relatively little research into the causes, persistence and population‐level impacts of disturbance in the dynamic coastal ocean. Here, we utilize 3 years of observations from a coastal time series to identify disturbances based on the largest week‐over‐week changes in the microbiome (i.e. identifying disturbance as events that alter the community composition). In general, these microbiome disturbances were not clearly linked to specific environmental factors and responsive taxa largely differed, aside from SAR11, which generally declined. However, several disturbance metagenomes identified increased phage‐associated genes, suggesting that unexplained community shifts might be caused by increased mortality. Furthermore, a category 1 hurricane, the only event that would likely be classified a priori as an environmental disturbance, was not an outlier in microbiome composition, but did enhance a bloom in seasonally abundant phytoplankton. Thus, as extreme environmental changes intensify, assumptions of what constitutes a disturbance should be re‐examined in the context of ecological history and microbiome responses.
ISSN:1462-2912
1462-2920
DOI:10.1111/1462-2920.16086