Seawater carbonate chemistry and whole community and functional gene changes of bioflms on marine plastic debris

• Main Authors: Kerfahi, Dorsaf, Harvey, Ben P, Kim, Hyoki, Yang, Ying, Adams, Jonathan M, Hall-Spencer, Jason M
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2022
• Subjects: Abundance; Alkalinity; total; standard deviation; Aragonite saturation state; Bicarbonate ion; Calcite saturation state; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. (2010); Calculated using seacarb after Orr et al. (2018); Carbon; inorganic; dissolved; Carbonate ion; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; CO2 vent; Coast and continental shelf; Community composition and diversity; Entire community; EXP; Experiment; Family; Field observation; Figure; Fugacity of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Fugacity of carbon dioxide in seawater; Function; Functional diversity; Gene expression (incl. proteomics); North Pacific; OA-ICC; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre; Pacific; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.946567; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.946567

Plastics are accumulating in the world's oceans, while ocean waters are becoming acidified by increased CO2. We compared metagenome of biofilms on tethered plastic bottles in subtidal waters off Japan naturally enriched in CO2, compared to normal ambient CO2 levels. Extending from an earlier amplicon study of bacteria, we used metagenomics to provide direct insights into changes in the full range of functional genes and the entire taxonomic tree of life in the context of the changing plastisphere. We found changes in the taxonomic community composition of all branches of life. This included a large increase in diatom relative abundance across the treatments but a decrease in diatom diversity. Network complexity among families decreased with acidification, showing overall simplification of biofilm integration. With acidification, there was decreased prevalence of genes associated with cell–cell interactions and antibiotic resistance, decreased detoxification genes, and increased stress tolerance genes. There were few nutrient cycling gene changes, suggesting that the role of plastisphere biofilms in nutrient processes within an acidified ocean may not change greatly. Our results suggest that as ocean CO2 increases, the plastisphere will undergo broad-ranging changes in both functional and taxonomic composition, especially the ecologically important diatom group, with possible wider implications for ocean ecology.