Abstract
Seagrass ecosystems are among the most productive marine ecosystems, and diazotrophic communities play a crucial role in sustaining the productivity and stability of such ecosystems by introducing fixed nitrogen. However, information concerning both total and active diazotrophic groups existing in different compartments of seagrass is lacking. This study comprehensively investigated the diversity, structure, and abundance of diazotrophic communities in different parts of the seagrass Halophila ovalis at the DNA and RNA level from clone libraries and real-time quantitative PCR. Our results indicated that nearly one-third of existing nitrogen-fixing bacteria were active, and their abundance might be controlled by nitrogen to phosphorus ratio (N:P). Deltaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria were dominant groups among the total and active diazotrophic communities in all samples. These two groups accounted for 82.21% and 70.96% at the DNA and RNA levels, respectively. The genus Pseudomonas and sulfate-reducing bacteria (genera: Desulfosarcina, Desulfobulbus, Desulfocapsa, and Desulfopila) constituted the significant fraction of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the seagrass ecosystem, playing an additional role in denitrification and sulfate reduction, respectively. Moreover, the abundance of the nitrogenase gene, nifH, was highest in seawater and lowest in rhizosphere sediments from all samples. This study highlighted the role of diazotropic communities in the subtropical seagrass ecosystem.
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modified by iTOL software using the neighbor-joining method at DNA level (A) and RNA level (B). Sequences in tree were representative in each OTUs. A bootstrap test involving 1000 resamplings was performed. Bar, 0.1 substitution rate (Knuc) units
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Acknowledgements
The research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (41676163, 41406191), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA13020300), Key Special Project for Introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (GML2019ZD0402), Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISEE2018ZD02), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFC0506301, 2018YFC1406501, 2018FY100105), Guangdong Province Public Welfare Research and Capacity Building Project (2015A020216016), and Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, China (2020B1212060058). The authors would like to thank all the members of Daya Bay Marine Biology Research Stations for their helping work in sample collecting.
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Zhou, W., Ding, D., Yang, Q. et al. Diversity and abundance of diazotrophic communities of seagrass Halophila ovalis based on genomic and transcript level in Daya Bay, South China Sea. Arch Microbiol 203, 5577–5589 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-021-02544-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-021-02544-8