engleski

Hidden diatom diversity of the Northern Adriatic through metabarcodin

The northern Adriatic (NA), a shallow sub-basin of the Adriatic Sea, is under significant influence of various environmental factors that shape and determine (phytoplankton) community structures in this distinctive marine ecosystem (region). The phytoplankton community represents the base of the marine food chain and a good sensing tool of the changes in the environment. Hence, diversity of the phytoplankton has a long-term monitoring implementation in the NA. Even though, extensive knowledge of the NA phytoplankton community exists, still, some groups and species remain undetected by traditional microscopy approaches. To overcome these limitations, we implemented metabarcoding to describe diatom diversity of the NA. Sampling stations covered the entire NA region and the marine protected area Lim bay. Usage of two barcodes (18S and rbcL) and strict taxonomy assessment (99% similarity threshold) enabled detailed and reliable insights into the diatom diversity of the area studied. Common and/or abundant taxa, detected also with microscopy, were confirmed, and taxa not known so far for the area studied or taxa difficult to identify with light microscopy (pico and nano-size classes) were successfully detected through metabarcoding. A number of reads, also with high sequence similarity to reference sequences, were assigned to freshwater genera, opening further questions about their DNAs origin or species persistence in the marine environment of the NA.

Adriatic Sea ; diatoms ; metabarcoding

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