Communities of T4-like bacteriophages associated with bacteria in Lake Baikal: diversity and biogeography

Lake Baikal phage communities are important for lake ecosystem functioning. Here we describe the diversity of T4-bacteriophage associated with the bacterial fraction of filtered water samples collected from the pelagic zone, coastal zone and shallow bays. Although the study of the diversity of phages for the g23 gene has been carried out at Lake Baikal for more than ten years, shallow bays that comprise a significant part of the lake’s area have been neglected, and this gene has not previously been studied in the bacterial fraction. Phage communities were probed using amplicon sequencing methods targeting the gene of major capsid protein (g23) and compared phylogenetically across sample locations and with sequences previously retrieved from non-bacterial fractions (<0.2 um) and biofilms (non-fractionated). In this study, we examined six water samples, in which 24 to 74 viral OTUs were obtained. The sequences from shallow bays largely differed from those in the pelagic and coastal samples and formed individual subcluster in the UPGMA tree that was obtained from the comparison of phylogenetic distances of g23 sequence sets from various ecosystems, reflecting differences in viral communities depending on the productivity of various sites of Lake Baikal. According to the RefSeq database, from 58.3 to 73% of sequences of each sample had cultivated closest relatives belonging to cyanophages. In this study, for phylogenetic analysis, we chose the closest relatives not only from the RefSeq and GenBank NR databases but also from two marine and one freshwater viromes: eutrophic Osaka Bay (Japan), oligotrophic area of the Pacific Ocean (Station ALOHA) and mesotrophic and ancient Lake Biwa (Japan), which allowed us to more fully compare the diversity of marine and freshwater phages. The identity with marine sequences at the amino acid level ranged from 35 to 80%, and with the sequences from the viral fraction and bacterial one from Lake Biwa—from 35.3 to 98% and from 33.9 to 89.1%, respectively. Therefore, the sequences from marine viromes had a greater difference than those from freshwater viromes, which may indicate a close relationship between freshwater viruses and differences from marine viruses.

High-resolution flow simulation in Typhoon 21, 2018: massive loss of submerged macrophytes in Lake Biwa

The global activities of typhoons and hurricanes are gradually changing, and these storms can drastically affect lake ecosystems through the recession of submerged macrophytes that regulate the water quality in lakes. Using an echosounder, we captured the short-term, massive loss of submerged macrophytes attributed to the abnormal fluctuation of the water level induced by the approach of a catastrophic super typhoon in the southern basin of Lake Biwa, Japan. This paper investigates the physical processes responsible for the loss of vegetation using a high-resolution circulation model in Lake Biwa as a pilot study area. The circulation model was coupled with dynamical models of the fluid force and erosion acting on the vegetation. Our simulation successfully reproduced the water level fluctuation and high-speed current (torrent) generated by the typhoon gale. The simulated results demonstrated that the fluid force driven by the gale-induced torrent uprooted submerged macrophytes during the typhoon approach and that this fluid force (rather than erosion) caused the outflow of vegetation. As a result, this uprooting attributed to the fluid force induced the massive loss of submerged macrophytes in a large area of the southern basin, which might have increased primary production and reduced the stock of fish such as bluegill in the lake. Our model can estimate the reduction in the macrophyte height within the range of − 1.3 to − 0.4 m, suggesting that fluid forces greater than the time-averaged value (1.24 × 10−4 N) were available. Flow speeds of approximately 0.8 m/s might be the critical value that induces the fluid force acting on the uprooting of the submerged macrophytes. Our approach is practical for evaluating changes in lake environments attributed to the massive outflow of submerged macrophytes under various climate change scenarios.