Responses of attached bacterial communities to blooms of the swimming shelled pteropod Creseis acicula in Daya Bay, southern China

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Abstract
The shelled pteropod Creseis acicula is a marine pelagic shellfish widely distributed from temperate to tropical seas around the world. From June to July 2020, a C. acicula bloom first happened in the Daya Bay, southern China, and its density reached the highest value (5600 ind. m−3) ever recorded around the world. However, few studies have investigated the responses of bacterial communities to the C. acicula bloom. In the present study, we examined the community profiles of three communities of bacteria including the free-living and particle-attached bacteria in the blooming and reference waters, and bacteria attached to the whole body and shell of C. acicula using a high-throughput sequencing method. The results indicated that the C. acicula bloom had a greater impact on particle-attached bacteria than free-living bacteria. Among the bloom-sensitive particle-attached bacteria, the predominant bacterial phyla were Pseudomonadota, Bacteroidota and Verrucomicrobiota in the blooming areas, whereas they were Actinomycetota and Planctomycetota in the reference areas. Specifically, fecal bacteria Haloferula and Halioglobus spp. were significantly enriched in the blooming waters and accumulated on C. acicula shells. Conversely, the significantly lower relative abundance of Nocardioides sp. in the blooming area and accumulated on the whole body of C. acicula indicated their attachment to particles consumed by C. acicula. Overall, our results suggested that the C. acicula bloom influenced marine bacteria, particularly particle-attached bacteria, by increasing (e.g. providing shells and feces) or decreasing (e.g. filter-feeding the suspended particles) the abundance of available substances.
Funding Information
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (41976149)
  • Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (2021A1515011377)
  • National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1407501)
  • Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund, CAFS (2023TD15)
  • South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences (2021SD03)
  • Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People's Republic of China (NFZX2021)
  • Fund of Key Laboratory for Sustainable Utilization of Open-sea Fishery, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, P. R. China (LOF 2023-03)

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