Abstract
Prokaryotic diversity and community composition in the water column of eight stations (63 samples) around the Antarctic Peninsula of the Southern Ocean were investigated. Through pyrosequencing of the V3–V4 hypervariable regions of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene, we characterized 4 720 089 valid reads representing 48 188 operational taxonomic units (OTUs, 97% similarity). The community was dominated by the phyla Pseudomonadota (original name: Proteobacteria, 47%), Oxyphotobacteria (26%), and Bacteroidota (original name: Bacteroidetes, 18%), which comprised an average of 91% of the total OTUs in all samples. The prokaryotic community composition varied vertically within the water column. Water column prokaryotic communities exhibited a clear depth profile, with higher microbial richness and higher diversity observed with increasing water depth. Cluster analysis of the community composition of water column samples exhibited a similar trend with depth. Correlation with environmental factors suggested distinct variation in prokaryotic community composition with changes in depth, salinity, temperature and dissolved oxygen levels. Functional prediction showed presence of active nitrogen, sulphur and methane metabolic cycles along the vertical transect of the studied region. These results will improve our knowledge of prokaryotic diversity and community composition at different depth of water column for better understanding of the microbial ecology and nutrient cycles in Antarctic Peninsula region of the Southern Ocean.
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Data Availability
All the sequence dataset generated in this study have been submitted to NCBI under the BioProject ID of PRJNA850820.
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This research was supported by the R/V XIANGYANGHONG01 voyage of 34th Antarctic Scientific Investigation of China. We are grateful to all the laboratory members for their technical advice and helpful suggestions.
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Foundation item: The Impact and Response of Antarctic Seas to Climate Change under contract No. IRFSOCC2020-2022.
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Li, J., Zhao, L., Gu, X. et al. Vertical microbial profiling of water column reveals prokaryotic communities and distribution features of Antarctic Peninsula. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 42, 90–100 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-023-2160-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-023-2160-3