Ultrastructure and Function of Setae of a Planktonic Diatom, Chaetoceros Coarctatus

Silica frustules of most planktonic diatoms have many shallow holes in which the length (L) is smaller than the width (W). The present study focuses on a silicic ultrastructure of the setae of a planktonic diatom having deep (L/W > 1) holes. Here, we characterized nanoholes on the silica walls of hollow setae of a colony of Chaetoceros coarctatus. Basically, tetragonal poroid arrangements with and without a costa pattern are observed on the inner and outer surfaces, respectively, for three kinds of curving hollow setae. Deep nanoholes ∼90 nm wide are elongated from 150 to 1500 nm (L/W ∼17) with an increase in the wall thickness of the polygonal tubes of the setae. The inside poroid array, with a period of 190 nm in the extension direction of setae, is lined by parallel plates of the costae. However, the poroid arrangement on the outer surface is disordered, with several holes obstructed with increasing wall thickness of the posterior terminal setae. According to the movement of a colony in a fluid microchannel, the thick curving terminal setae is suggested to involve attitude control and mechanical protection. Using an optical simulation, the patterned deep through-holes on the intercalary setae were inferred to contribute anti-reflection of blue light for the promotion of photosynthesis in seawater.

Diversity of Planktonik Diatom at Bengkalis Waters, Riau Province

This research was carried out in August to September 2019 at Bengkalis Waters, Riau Province. This study goals to describe the water quality statues and to determine the species composition, abundance and biological index of planktonic diatom in the Bengkalis waters. Survey method was applied in this research which are 5 stations established, with 3 sampling points in each station. The stations were determined purposively based on antrophogenic activities conducted in that area. Diatom samples were filtered from surface water as much as 100 liters by using plankton net number 25, and the samples were then observed using an Olympus CX 21 microscope (magnification 10 x 10 and 10 x 40) and were identified. The value of water quality at each station indicates that the water is in normal range and it may support the growth of diatoms. There were 20 spesies of planktonic diatoms recorded in the Bengkalis waters. There were 2 species, namely Coscinodiscus sp. and Navicula sp. that were found in each station. Meanwhile, the abundance of plankatonic diatoms ranged from 23,041.80 to 286,693.18 ind/l. The average of biological indices values are as follows: diversity index 1.39-2.32, dominance index 0.24 to 0,48 ind / l, and the uniformity index 0.55 to 0.87 ind / l. The biological indices values indicated that the Bengkalis Waters can be categorized as moderate polluted water and there is no dominant species.

Environmental parameters and diversity of diatoms in the Aïn Dalia dam, Northeast of Algeria

Heramza K, Barour C, Djabourabi A, Khati W, Bouallag C. 2021. Environmental parameters and diversity of diatoms in the Aïn Dalia dam, Northeast of Algeria. Biodiversitas 22: 3633-3644. Diatoms have long been used as biological indicators of the quality of aquatic environments due to their important capacity to respond to environmental change. As this flora has been very little studied in Algeria, the present study aimed to monitor the Spatio-temporal dynamics of diatoms at the Aïn Dalia dam (north-eastern of Algeria) and determine the main abiotic factors contributing to these variations from June 2017 to May 2018 in four selected stations. Our results showed that the waters of Aïn Dalia dam waters vary from moderately (St1 and St3) to significantly polluted (St2 and St4). They host the community of planktonic diatom flora composed of 72 species. The interspecific biodiversity was marked in summer and autumn (57 and 56 species respectively) and in the St4 station (52 species). In terms of abundance, more than 40% of the overall density was found in the St4 station and the fall period. Among the dominant genera, Cyclotella, Thalassiosira, Synedra and Navicula are found in moderately polluted waters, while Nitzschia, Melosira and Surirella in significantly polluted waters. Some environmental parameters, including nutrients (PO43-and NO2-), SM, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH played a key role in the functioning and evolution of this lake. Hence, these parameters demonstrated important fluctuations during our study and influenced directly the diatom distribution. These results showed that diatom assemblages are influenced by anthropogenic disturbances, and can be used as indicators of environmental quality.

Empirical evidence for concerted evolution in the 18S rDNA region of the planktonic diatom genus Chaetoceros

Concerted evolution is a process of homogenisation of repetitive sequences within a genome through unequal crossing over and gene conversion. This homogenisation is never fully achieved because mutations always create new variants. Classically, concerted evolution has been detected as “noise” in electropherograms and these variants have been characterised through cloning and sequencing of subsamples of amplified products. However, this approach limits the number of detectable variants and provides no information about the abundance of each variant. In this study, we investigated concerted evolution by using environmental time-series metabarcoding data, single strain high-throughput sequencing (HTS) and a collection of Sanger reference barcode sequences. We used six species of the marine planktonic diatom genus Chaetoceros as study system. Abundance plots obtained from environmental metabarcoding and single strain HTS showed the presence of a haplotype far more abundant than all the others (the “dominant” haplotype) and identical to the reference sequences of that species obtained with Sanger sequencing. This distribution fitted best with Zipf’s law among the rank abundance/ dominance models tested. Furthermore, in each strain 99% of reads showed a similarity of 99% with the dominant haplotype, confirming the efficiency of the homogenisation mechanism of concerted evolution. We also demonstrated that minor haplotypes found in the environmental samples are not only technical artefacts, but mostly intragenomic variation generated by incomplete homogenisation. Finally, we showed that concerted evolution can be visualised inferring phylogenetic networks from environmental data. In conclusion, our study provides an important contribution to the understanding of concerted evolution and to the interpretation of DNA barcoding and metabarcoding data based on multigene family markers.

Planktonic diatom assemblage seasonal diversity used to assess environmental health in a coastal wetland of southern Chile

ABSTRACTAlthough planktonic diatoms are one of the most abundant taxonomic groups in coastal wetlands, their assemblages have not been used to determine the environmental health of these ecosystems. Studies of ecosystem environmental health have been based on other taxonomic groups; we propose that diatom genera diversity represents a viable alternative for this purpose. Thus, our aim was to determine the alpha and beta diversities of the planktonic diatom assemblage present in Caulín Bay, Chiloé Island (41° 49’S; 73° 38’O), southern Chile, during the austral winter and spring of the years 2012 and 2014. Inasmuch Caulín Bay is an important site for aquatic bird observation and conservation, hunting is prohibited on a national scale and, internationally, the site has been declared an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA). Our results indicate different diversities between sampling stations, but not between the years studied. In total, we recorded 53 diatom genera, of which the most abundant were Coscinodiscus (21.99%) and Cocconeis (16.23%). The study area presented high genera diversity (i.e., H’(log2) >3.74) and beta diversity indicated that Caulín presents a low level of heterogeneity and is a low genera replacement environment. Consequently, we infer that Caulín Bay is productive and environmentally stable ecosystem. This leads us to conclude that diatom diversity determination is a viable alternative to establish aquatic ecosystem environmental health and we recommend that future conservation strategies be established for Caulín Bay.RESUMENSi bien las diatomeas planctónicas son uno de los grupos taxonómicos más abundantes de los humedales costeros, sus ensambles no se han utilizado para determinar el estado ambiental de estos ecosistemas. Aunque se han realizado estudios de la salud ambiental de un ecosistema utilizando otros grupos taxonómicos, nosotros proponemos que la diversidad de géneros de diatomeas representa una alternativa viable. Por lo tanto, el objetivo de este estudio fue determinar las diversidades alfa y beta del ensamble de diatomeas planctónicas presentes en la Bahía de Caulín, Isla de Chiloé (41 ° 49’S; 73 ° 38’O), sur de Chile, durante las temporadas de invierno y primavera austral de los años 2012 y 2014. Bahía Caulín es un sitio importante para la observación y conservación de aves acuáticas por lo que a nivel nacional se ha prohibido la caza y a nivel internacional fue decretada un Área Importante para la Conservación de Aves, AICA. Los resultados de este estudio indicaron diferencias en las diversidades entre las estaciones de muestreo, pero no entre los años estudiados. En total, se identificaron 53 géneros de diatomeas; los más abundantes fueron Coscinodiscus (21,99%) y Cocconeis (16,23%). El área de estudio presentó una alta diversidad de géneros (i.e., H’(log2) >3.74) y la diversidad beta indicó que Caulín presentó bajo nivel de heterogeneidad y es un entorno con bajo reemplazo de géneros. Así, inferimos que Bahía Caulín es un ecosistema productivo y ambientalmente estable, por lo cual concluimos que la determinación de las diversidades de diatomeas es una alternativa para establecer la salud ambiental de los ecosistemas acuáticos y recomendamos establecer futuras estrategias de conservación para Bahía Caulín.PALABRAS CLAVE: diatomeas, diversidades ecológicas, plancton, humedales costeros, desembocadura

Exploring Molecular Signs of Sex in the Marine Diatom Skeletonema marinoi

Sexual reproduction plays a fundamental role in diatom life cycles. It contributes to increasing genetic diversity through meiotic recombination and also represents the phase where large-sized cells are produced to counteract the cell size reduction process that characterizes these microalgae. With the aim to identify genes linked to the sexual phase of the centric planktonic diatom Skeletonema marinoi, we carried out an RNA-seq experiment comparing the expression level of transcripts in sexualized cells with that of large cells not competent for sex. A set of genes involved in meiosis were found upregulated. Despite the fact that flagellate gametes were observed in the sample, we did not detect the expression of genes involved in the synthesis of flagella that were upregulated during sexual reproduction in another centric diatom. A comparison with the set of genes changing during the first phases of sexual reproduction of the pennate diatom Pseudo-nitzschia multistriata revealed the existence of commonalities, including the strong upregulation of genes with an unknown function that we named Sex Induced Genes (SIG). Our results further broadened the panel of genes that can be used as a marker for sexual reproduction of diatoms, crucial for the interpretation of metatranscriptomic datasets.