Dataset: Salp and pteropod associated microorganisms
View Data: Data not available yet
Data Citation:
Thompson, A. W. (2024) Salp and pteropod associated microorganisms. Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). (Version 1) Version Date 2024-05-06 [if applicable, indicate subset used]. http://lod.bco-dmo.org/id/dataset/926841 [access date]
Terms of Use
This dataset is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
If you wish to use this dataset, it is highly recommended that you contact the original principal investigators (PI). Should the relevant PI be unavailable, please contact BCO-DMO (info@bco-dmo.org) for additional guidance. For general guidance please see the BCO-DMO Terms of Use document.
Spatial Extent: N:26.7425 E:-79.9875 S:26.7425 W:-79.9875
Western edge of the Gulf Stream
Temporal Extent: 2019-09-15
Project:
Collaborative Research: Comparative feeding by gelatinous grazers on microbial prey
(Gelatinous Grazer Feeding)
Co-Principal Investigator:
Anne W. Thompson (Portland State University, PSU)
Contact:
Anne W. Thompson (Portland State University, PSU)
BCO-DMO Data Manager:
Karen Soenen (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, WHOI BCO-DMO)
Version:
1
Version Date:
2024-05-06
Restricted:
No
Validated:
No
Current State:
Data not available
16S rRNA sequencing salp and pteropod microorganisms
Abstract:
Microbial mortality impacts the structure of food webs, carbon flow, and the interactions that create dynamic patterns of abundance across gradients in space and time in diverse ecosystems. In the oceans, estimates of microbial mortality by viruses, protists, and small zooplankton do not account fully for observations of loss, suggesting the existence of underappreciated mortality sources. We examined how ubiquitous mucous mesh feeders (i.e. gelatinous zooplankton) could contribute to microbial mortality in the open ocean. We coupled capture of live animals by blue-water diving to sequence-based approaches to measure the enrichment and selectivity of feeding by two coexisting mucous grazer taxa (pteropods and salps) on numerically dominant marine prokaryotes. We show that mucous mesh grazers consume a variety of marine prokaryotes and select between coexisting lineages and similar cell sizes. We show that Prochlorococcus may evade filtration more than other cells and that planktonic archaea are consumed by macrozooplanktonic grazers. Discovery of these feeding relationships identifies a new source of mortality for Earth's dominant marine microbes and alters our understanding of how top-down processes shape microbial community and function.