Estructura de las comunidades planctónicas Eucariotas de dos estuarios del golfo de Bizkaia: Un acercamiento por Metabarcoding. D. Abad1, M. Aguirre1, ...
XVIII Simposio Ibérico de Estudios de Biología Marina. Gijón (España), 2-5 Septiembre 2014
2.1 Eukaryotic plankton community structure of two estuaries in the bay of Biscay: A metabarcoding approach Estructura de las comunidades planctónicas Eucariotas de dos estuarios del golfo de Bizkaia: Un acercamiento por Metabarcoding D. Abad1, M. Aguirre1, A. Albaina1, N. Etxebarria2 & A. Estonba1 1Department
of Genetics, Physical Anthropology & Animal Physiology. Faculty of Science and Technology. University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Spain 2Department of Analytical Chemistry. Faculty of Science and Technology. University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Spain.
Planktonic communities are found at the bottom of the aquatic trophic chain and play a crucial role in the sustenance of larger organisms, as well as in biogeochemical cycles. However, partial knowledge about planktonic diversity patterns remains unclear due to taxonomic uncertainties related to weaknesses of traditional methods. Our interest is focused in two contrasting areas characterized by different levels of anthropogenic pressure, both located in the Basque Country: on the one hand the Bilbao estuary, which in the late 80s was one of the most contaminated in Europe and now is in a recovery process, and on the other the Urdabai estuary, and UNESCO biosphere reserve. The aim of this study was to characterize, using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies for the first time, the whole eukaryotic plankton community (20-2000μm) of these ecosystems. The innovative taxonomic resolution of the metabarcoding approach, along with its extreme sensibility, allows accurate measurements of diversity that can be used as reference for further surveys. For this purpose, a fragment of the 18S rDNA gene was amplified and sequenced according to the Earth Microbiome Project (http://www.earthmicrobiome.org/) protocol and the Qiime (http://www.qiime.org) pipeline was used to perform taxonomic assignment of the obtained sequences by local alignment to existent databases. We produced a set of plankton diversity indexes. The results of the phytoplankton and zooplankton communities present in both estuaries were compared along a salinity gradient, with special relevance to the measured physico-chemical variables such as precipitation rates, temperature or heavy metals patterns. The medium-term goal of this project is to develop an accurate, straightforward and costeffective method for plankton monitoring, whose applicability could serve as a tool for early detection of ecosystems climate changes and/or pollution and therefore help policy makers in promptly designing mitigation actions. This is paramount for biological studies in the context of the ongoing climate change and, even more, in estuaries, that are key ecosystems where the risk of invasive species colonisations is higher due to the associated maritime traffic. Palabras clave: Plancton, biodiversidad, metabarcoding, 18SrDNA, estuarios. Keywords: Plankton, biodiversity, metabarcoding, 18SrDNA, estuaries.
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