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- Andersson, Björn, 1985, et al.
(author)
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Cross-contamination risks in sediment-based resurrection studies of phytoplankton
- 2022
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In: Limnology and Oceanography Letters. - : Wiley. - 2378-2242. ; 8:2, s. 376-84
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Resurrection studies can answer some fundamental questions in aquatic ecology and evolutionary biology. For phytoplankton resting stages, longevity of thousands to millions of years has recently been reported. However, contamination during sediment sampling could distort these estimates, and this risk has not been systematically evaluated. Here we used 4.5 mu m diameter microspheres to quantify contamination while reviving the resting stages of seven abundant estuarine diatom and cyanobacterial taxa. We observed a sharp decline in resting stages abundance from 10(6) (g wet sediment)(-1) at the surface to < 0.8 (g wet sediment)(-1) at 12.5 cm depth. Added microspheres (similar to 4.5 x 10(7) cm(-2)) were translocated even deeper down the sediment and could well explain the vertical distributions and abundances of revived cells. Without this control, we could have claimed to have revived seven multi-decades to centennial-old taxa. Our findings suggest that improved contamination controls are needed for sediment core sampling of rare cells, microfossils, or DNA molecules.
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| 2. |
- Andersson, Björn, et al.
(author)
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Strain-specific metabarcoding reveals rapid evolution of copper tolerance in populations of the coastal diatom Skeletonema marinoi
- 2023
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In: Molecular Ecology. - 0962-1083 .- 1365-294X.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Phytoplankton have short generation times, flexible reproduction strategies, large population sizes and high standing genetic diversity, traits that should facilitate rapid evolution under directional selection. We quantified local adaptation of copper tolerance in a population of the diatom Skeletonema marinoi from a mining-exposed inlet in the Baltic Sea and in a non-exposed population 100 km away. We hypothesized that mining pollution has driven evolution of elevated copper tolerance in the impacted population of S. marinoi. Assays of 58 strains originating from sediment resting stages revealed no difference in the average tolerance to copper between the two populations. However, variation within populations was greater at the mining site, with three strains displaying hyper-tolerant phenotypes. In an artificial evolution experiment, we used a novel intraspecific metabarcoding locus to track selection and quantify fitness of all 58 strains during co-cultivation in one control and one toxic copper treatment. As expected, the hyper-tolerant strains enabled rapid evolution of copper tolerance in the mining-exposed population through selection on available strain diversity. Within 42 days, in each experimental replicate a single strain dominated (30%–99% abundance) but different strains dominated the different treatments. The reference population developed tolerance beyond expectations primarily due to slowly developing plastic response in one strain, suggesting that different modes of copper tolerance are present in the two populations. Our findings provide novel empirical evidence that standing genetic diversity of phytoplankton resting stage allows populations to evolve rapidly (20–50 generations) and flexibly on timescales relevant for seasonal bloom progressions.
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