Publication Date:
2024-03-15
Description:
Plastics are accumulating in the world's oceans, while ocean waters are becoming acidified by increased CO2. We compared metagenome of biofilms on tethered plastic bottles in subtidal waters off Japan naturally enriched in CO2, compared to normal ambient CO2 levels. Extending from an earlier amplicon study of bacteria, we used metagenomics to provide direct insights into changes in the full range of functional genes and the entire taxonomic tree of life in the context of the changing plastisphere. We found changes in the taxonomic community composition of all branches of life. This included a large increase in diatom relative abundance across the treatments but a decrease in diatom diversity. Network complexity among families decreased with acidification, showing overall simplification of biofilm integration. With acidification, there was decreased prevalence of genes associated with cell–cell interactions and antibiotic resistance, decreased detoxification genes, and increased stress tolerance genes. There were few nutrient cycling gene changes, suggesting that the role of plastisphere biofilms in nutrient processes within an acidified ocean may not change greatly. Our results suggest that as ocean CO2 increases, the plastisphere will undergo broad-ranging changes in both functional and taxonomic composition, especially the ecologically important diatom group, with possible wider implications for ocean ecology.
Keywords:
Abundance; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard deviation; Aragonite saturation state; Aragonite saturation state, standard deviation; Bicarbonate ion; Bicarbonate ion, standard deviation; Calcite saturation state; Calcite saturation state, standard deviation; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. (2010); Calculated using seacarb after Orr et al. (2018); Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved, standard deviation; Carbonate ion; Carbonate ion, standard deviation; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide, standard deviation; CO2 vent; Coast and continental shelf; Community composition and diversity; Entire community; EXP; Experiment; Family; Field observation; Figure; Fugacity of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Fugacity of carbon dioxide in seawater, standard deviation; Function; Functional diversity; Gene expression (incl. proteomics); North Pacific; OA-ICC; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide, standard deviation; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Pelagos; pH; pH, standard deviation; Phylum; Salinity; Salinity, standard deviation; Sample ID; Shannon Diversity Index; Shikine_Island; Species; Taxa; Temperate; Temperature, water; Temperature, water, standard deviation; Treatment; Type
Type:
Dataset
Format:
text/tab-separated-values, 22824 data points
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