Nguyen Dzung, Masasa Matan, Ovadia Ofer, Guttman Lior
Marine Biology and Biotechnology Program, Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Eilat Campus, Eilat, Israel; Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, The National Center for Mariculture, PO Box 1212, 8811201, Eilat, Israel.
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Life Sciences, POB 653, 8410501 Beer-Sheva, Israel.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Feb 1;858(Pt 1):159775. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159775. Epub 2022 Oct 26.
Among numerous research about marine plastisphere, the community living on the surface of plastic debris, little attention was given to the ecological mechanisms governing prokaryotes compared to eukaryotes, and even less focused on their resilience in a changing climate with more storm prevalence. Our current research recruited an integrated approach involving community succession across temporal dimension, ecological mechanisms that govern the assembly, and resilience to environmental perturbations to highlight the ecology of different kingdoms in the plastisphere. Towards this goal, we examined the succession of the prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities on artificial plastic nets in a sidestream of seawater from the Gulf of Aqaba over 35 days. A robust local storm enabled investigation of the alterations before, during, and after this disturbance, aiming at the community's potential to recover. Data from 16S and 18S rRNA sequencing and microscopic analyses decrypted the plastisphere diversity, community assembly, and stochasticity, followed by further analyses of functional and co-occurrence networks for the prokaryotic group. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities underwent exact opposite ecological mechanisms. While determinism driven by a robust environmental selection dictated the prokaryotic community assembly, stochasticity prevailed when this condition was relaxed. Interestingly, resilience against disturbance was observed in prokaryotes but not in eukaryotes. The decrease in compositional, functional diversity and network complexity in the prokaryotic community was reversed, presumably due to the niche specification process and high dispersal. Niche specification following perturbation was evident in some bacteria by selected functions associated with plastic degradation, stress response, and antibiotic resistance. On the contrary, eukaryotes decreased in diversity and were dominated by the commonly found Chlorophyta towards the later successional period. Novel findings on the ecology of marine plastisphere during perturbation encourage the integration of this aspect into prediction research.
在众多关于海洋塑料球（生活在塑料碎片表面的群落）的研究中，与真核生物相比，对原核生物的生态机制关注较少，更鲜有关注它们在风暴增多的气候变化中的恢复力。我们目前的研究采用了一种综合方法，涉及跨时间维度的群落演替、控制群落组装的生态机制以及对环境扰动的恢复力，以突出塑料球中不同生物界的生态学。为了实现这一目标，我们在35天内研究了亚喀巴湾海水中人工塑料网表面原核生物和真核生物群落的演替。一场强烈的局部风暴使我们能够调查这种干扰之前、期间和之后的变化，旨在了解群落的恢复潜力。来自16S和18S rRNA测序以及显微镜分析的数据解密了塑料球的多样性、群落组装和随机性，随后对原核生物组的功能和共现网络进行了进一步分析。原核生物和真核生物群落经历了完全相反的生态机制。虽然强大的环境选择驱动的确定性决定了原核生物群落的组装，但当这种条件放松时，随机性占主导。有趣的是，原核生物表现出对干扰的恢复力，而真核生物则没有。原核生物群落中组成、功能多样性和网络复杂性的下降得到了逆转，这可能是由于生态位特化过程和高扩散性。在一些与塑料降解、应激反应和抗生素抗性相关的选定功能的细菌中，扰动后的生态位特化很明显。相反，真核生物的多样性下降，在演替后期以常见的绿藻为主。关于扰动期间海洋塑料球生态学的新发现鼓励将这一方面纳入预测研究。
