Frontiers in Microbiology ( IF 4.0 ) Pub Date : 2020-11-13 , DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.601037 Yaping Wang , Guihao Li , Fei Shi , Jun Dong , Eleni Gentekaki , Songbao Zou , Ping Zhu , Xiaoli Zhang , Jun Gong
Pico-/nanoeukaryotes (P/NEs) comprise both primary producers and bacterial predators, playing important biogeochemical and ecological roles in the marine microbial loop. Besides the difference in size, these small-sized fractions can be distinguished from microplankton by certain functional and ecological traits. Nevertheless, little information is available regarding patterns of their taxonomic and functional diversity and community composition along environmental gradients in coastal marine ecosystems. In this study, we applied high-throughput sequencing of 18S rRNA gene to assess the taxonomic species richness and community composition of P/NEs in surface waters of Bohai Sea and North Yellow Sea, northern China spanning a 600-km distance during summer and winter of 2011. The richness of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) formed a U-shaped relationship with concentration of chlorophyll