engleski

Targeting microbial communities as potential indicators of marine ecosystem health

Considering the major anthropogenic pressures affecting marine ecosystems, assessment of the “health status” of the coastal zones is an important topic, especially considering that 50% of the world population inhabits those areas. There has been a number of directives implemented by Mediterranean countries regarding protection and preservation of marine coastal areas. Unfortunately, none of them mention the potential contribution of microorganisms in marine ecosystems health quality assessment. Microorganisms play pivotal role in functioning of the whole marine ecosystem by mediating biogeochemical cycling of all major elements, C sequestration and elimination of pollutant. In the same time microorganisms are characterized by their fast responsiveness to environmental changes, hence anthropogenically-driven pressures in coastal areas could cause changes on the structural and functional level of microbial communities, eventually altering the trophic structure of the whole food web. Through the multidisciplinary and innovative approach, using different molecular tools, MicroLink project, financed by the Croatian Science Foundation, aims to emphasize the need to define potential contribution of microorganisms as quality indicators of marine ecosystems health. Sampling of the sediment material was performed in seven different harbors settled along the Adriatic coast, which represent sites under multiple pollution pressures. Comprehensive physico- chemical characterization of the sediment was used for their pre-classification in different groups thus representing sediments with different “anthropogenic disturbance gradient”. This data sets were further correlated with benthic microbial assemblages data obtained by the multi- layer, multi-trophic molecular-based analyses (structure/diversity/function of the benthic bacterial/archaeal/fungal/protists communities). MicroLink project is going to provide guidelines for future monitoring of anthropogenic pressures in coastal zones in order to improve marine environment policies.

microorganisms ; indicators ; marine ecosystem health ; marine policy

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