Scaling down the microbial loop: data-driven modelling of growth interactions in a diatom-bacterium co-culture

An intricate set of interactions characterizes marine ecosystems. One of the most important is represented by the so-called microbial loop, which includes the exchange of dissolved organic matter (DOM) from phototrophic organisms to heterotrophic bacteria. Here, it can be used as the major carbon and energy source. Arguably, this interaction is one of the foundations of the entire ocean food-web. Carbon fixed by phytoplankton can be redirected to bacterial cells in two main ways; either i) bacteria feed on dead (eventually lysed) phytoplankton cells or ii) DOM is actively released by phytoplankton cells (a widespread process that may result in up to 50% of the fixed carbon leaving the cell). In this work, we have set up a co-culture of the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum and the model chemoheterotrophic bacterium Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis TAC125 and used this system to study the interactions between these two representatives of the microbial loop. We show that the bacterium can indeed thrive on diatom-derived carbon and that this growth can be sustained by both diatom dead cells and diatom-released compounds. These observations were formalized in a network of putative interactions between P. tricornutum and P. haloplanktis and implemented in a mathematical model that reproduces the observed co-culture dynamics, suggesting that our hypotheses on the interactions occurring in this two-player system can accurately explain the experimental data.

Carbon biomass, carbon-to-chlorophyll a ratios and growth rates of phytoplankton in Jiaozhou Bay, China

<p>Carbon biomass, carbon-to-chlorophyll a ratio (C:Chl a) values and growth rates of phytoplankton cells were studied during four seasonal cruises in 2017 and 2018 in Jiaozhou Bay, China. Water samples were collected from twelve stations, and phytoplankton carbon biomass (phyto-C) was estimated from microscope-measured cell volumes. Phyto-C ranged from 5.05 to 78.52 μg C/L (mean 28.80 μg C/L) in the bay, and it constituted a mean of 38.16% of the total particulate organic carbon in the bay. High phyto-C values always appeared in the northern or northeastern bay. Diatom carbon was predominant during all four cruises. Dinoflagellate carbon contributed much less (<30%) to the total phyto-C, and high values always appeared in the outer bay. The C:Chl a of phytoplankton cells varied from 11.50 to 61.45 (mean 31.66), and high values appeared in the outer bay during all four seasons. The phyto-C was also used to calculate the intrinsic growth rates of phytoplankton cells in the bay, and phytoplankton growth rates ranged from 0.56 to 1.96 day<sup>-1</sup>; the rate was highest in summer (mean 1.79 day<sup>-1</sup>), followed by that in fall (mean 1.24 day<sup>-1</sup>) and spring (mean 1.17 day<sup>-1</sup>), and the rate was lowest in winter (mean 0.77 day<sup>-1</sup>). Temperature and silicate concentration were found to be the determining factors of phytoplankton growth rates in the bay. To our knowledge, this study is the first report on phytoplankton carbon biomass and C:Chl a based on water samples in Jiaozhou Bay, and it will provide useful information for studies on carbon-based food web calculations and carbon-based ecosystem models in the bay.</p>

Processes controlling aggregate formation and distribution during the Arctic phytoplankton spring bloom in Baffin Bay

In the last decades, the Arctic Ocean has been affected by climate change, leading to alterations in the sea ice cover that influence the phytoplankton spring bloom, its associated food web, and therefore carbon sequestration. During the Green Edge 2016 expedition in the central Baffin Bay, the phytoplankton spring bloom and its development around the ice edge was followed along 7 transects from open water to the ice-pack interior. Here, we studied some of the processes driving phytoplankton aggregation, using aggregate and copepod distribution profiles obtained with an underwater vision profiler deployed at several stations along the transects. Our results revealed a sequential pattern during sea ice retreat in phytoplankton production and in aggregate production and distribution. First, under sea ice, phytoplankton started to grow, but aggregates were not formed. Second, after sea ice melting, phytoplankton (diatoms and Phaeocystis spp. as the dominant groups) benefited from the light availability and stratified environment to bloom, and aggregation began coincident with nutrient depletion at the surface. Third, maxima of phytoplankton aggregates deepened in the water column and phytoplankton cells at the surface began to degrade. At most stations, silicate limitation began first, triggering aggregation of the phytoplankton cells; nitrate limitation came later. Copepods followed aggregates at the end of the phytoplankton bloom, possibly because aggregates provided higher quality food than senescing phytoplankton cells at the surface. These observations suggest that aggregation is involved in 2 export pathways constituting the biological pump: the gravitational pathway through the sinking of aggregates and fecal pellets and the migration pathway when zooplankton follow aggregates during food foraging.

Bacteria-mediated aggregation of the marine phytoplankton Thalassiosira weissflogii and Nannochloropsis oceanica

The ecological relationships between heterotrophic bacteria and marine phytoplankton are complex and multifaceted, and in some instances include the bacteria-mediated aggregation of phytoplankton cells. It is not known to what extent bacteria stimulate aggregation of marine phytoplankton, the variability in aggregation capacity across different bacterial taxa or the potential role of algogenic exopolymers in this process. Here we screened twenty bacterial isolates, spanning nine orders, for their capacity to stimulate aggregation of two marine phytoplankters, Thalassiosira weissflogii and Nannochloropsis oceanica. In addition to phytoplankton aggregation efficiency, the production of exopolymers was measured using Alcian Blue. Bacterial isolates from the Rhodobacterales, Flavobacteriales and Sphingomonadales orders stimulated the highest levels of cell aggregation in phytoplankton cultures. When co-cultured with bacteria, exopolymer concentration accounted for 34.1% of the aggregation observed in T. weissflogii and 27.7% of the aggregation observed in N. oceanica. Bacteria-mediated aggregation of phytoplankton has potentially important implications for mediating vertical carbon flux in the ocean and in extracting phytoplankton cells from suspension for biotechnological applications.

Genome Sequences and Metagenome-Assembled Genome Sequences of Microbial Communities Enriched on Phytoplankton Exometabolites

ABSTRACT We report 11 bacterial draft genome sequences and 38 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from marine phytoplankton exometabolite enrichments. The genomes and MAGs represent marine bacteria adapted to the metabolite environment of phycospheres, organic matter-rich regions surrounding phytoplankton cells, and are useful for exploring functional and taxonomic attributes of phytoplankton-associated bacterial communities.

Trapping of swimming microalgae in foam

Massive foam formation in aquatic environments is a seasonal event that has a significant impact on the stability of marine ecosystems. Liquid foams are known to filter passive solid particles, with large particles remaining trapped by confinement in the network of liquid channels and small particles being freely advected by the gravity-driven flow. By contrast, the potential role of a similar retention effect on biologically active particles such as phytoplankton cells is still relatively unknown. To assess if phytoplankton cells are passively advected through a foam, the model unicellular motile alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (CR) was incorporated in a bio-compatible foam, and the number of cells escaping the foam at the bottom was measured in time. Comparing the escape dynamics of living and dead CR cells, we found that dead cells are totally advected by the liquid flow towards the bottom of the foam, as expected since the diameter of CR remains smaller than the typical foam channel diameter. By contrast, living motile CR cells escape the foam at a significantly lower rate: after 2 hours, up to 60% of the injected cells may remain blocked in the foam, while 95% of the initial liquid volume in the foam has been drained out of the foam. Microscopic observation of the swimming CR cells in a chamber mimicking the cross-section of foam internal channels revealed that swimming CR cells accumulate near channels corners. A theoretical analysis based on the probability density measurements in the micro chambers has shown that this trapping at the microscopic scale contributes to explain the macroscopic retention of the microswimmers in the foam. At the crossroads of distinct fields including marine ecology of planktonic organisms, fluid dynamics of active particles in a confined environment and the physics of foam, this work represents a significant step in the fundamental understanding of the ecological consequences of aquatic foams in water bodies.

Nutrient Patchiness, Phytoplankton Surge-Uptake, and Turbulent History: A Theoretical Approach and Its Experimental Validation

Despite ample evidence of micro- and small-scale (i.e., millimeter- to meter-scale) phytoplankton and zooplankton patchiness in the ocean, direct observations of nutrient distributions and the ecological importance of this phenomenon are still relatively scarce. In this context, we first describe a simple procedure to continuously sample nutrients in surface waters, and subsequently provide evidence of the existence of microscale distribution of ammonium in the ocean. We further show that ammonium is never homogeneously distributed, even under very high conditions of turbulence. Instead, turbulence intensity appears to control nutrient patchiness, with a more homogeneous or a more heterogeneous distribution observed under high and low turbulence intensities, respectively, under the same concentration in nutrient. Based on a modelling procedure taking into account the stochastic properties of intermittent nutrient distributions and observations carried out on natural phytoplankton communities, we introduce and verify the hypothesis that under nutrient limitation, the “turbulent history” of phytoplankton cells, i.e., the turbulent conditions they experienced in their natural environments, conditions their efficiency to uptake ephemeral inorganic nitrogen patches of different concentrations. Specifically, phytoplankton cells exposed to high turbulence intensities (i.e., more homogeneous nutrient distribution) were more efficient to uptake high concentration nitrogen pulses (2 µM). In contrast, under low turbulence conditions (i.e., more heterogeneous nutrient distribution), uptake rates were higher for low concentration nitrogen pulses (0.5 µM). These results suggest that under nutrient limitation, natural phytoplankton populations respond to high turbulence intensities through a decrease in affinity for nutrients and an increase in their transport rate, and vice versa.