Connectivity between surface and deep waters determines prokaryotic diversity in the North Atlantic Deep Water

To decipher the influence of depth stratification andsurface provincialism on the dark ocean prokaryoticcommunity composition, we sampled the major deepwatermasses in the eastern North Atlantic coveringthree biogeographic provinces. Their diversity wasevaluated using ordination and canonical analysi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental Microbiology
Main Authors: Frank, A.H., Garcia, J.A.L., Herndl, G., Reinthaler, T.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/85/294785.pdf
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Summary:To decipher the influence of depth stratification andsurface provincialism on the dark ocean prokaryoticcommunity composition, we sampled the major deepwatermasses in the eastern North Atlantic coveringthree biogeographic provinces. Their diversity wasevaluated using ordination and canonical analysis of454 pyrotag sequences. Variance partitioning suggestedthat 16% of the variation in the bacterialcommunity composition was based on depth stratificationwhile 9% of the variation was due togeographic location. General linear mixed effectmodels showed that the community of the subsurfacewaters was connected to the dark ocean prokaryoticcommunities in different biogeographic provinces.Cluster analysis indicated that some prokaryotic taxaare specific to distinct regions in bathypelagic watermasses. Taken together, our data suggest that thedark ocean prokaryotic community composition ofthe eastern North Atlantic is primed by the formationand the horizontal transport of water masses.