那不勒斯湾作为浮游生物生态学研究的模式系统

Marine Ecology Pub Date : 2023-11-06 DOI:10.1111/maec.12779
Adriana Zingone, Domenico D'Alelio, Maria Grazia Mazzocchi
{"title":"那不勒斯湾作为浮游生物生态学研究的模式系统","authors":"Adriana Zingone, Domenico D'Alelio, Maria Grazia Mazzocchi","doi":"10.1111/maec.12779","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Plankton play a fundamental role in coastal and oceanic ecosystems as a key component of biogeochemical cycles and pelagic trophic webs and contribute to determining and maintaining the health of the oceans. More than half of the world's population living along the coasts relies on services offered by plankton in terms of seafood availability and seawater quality, at the same time altering coastal margins and affecting marine ecosystems (Vitousek et al., 1997). Therefore, monitoring, quantifying and understanding the responses of plankton to the variability of the coastal environment represent an urgent challenge to the scientific community, and even more so in an epoch of rapid changes. Yet, because of the prevalent microscopic nature of planktonic organisms and logistic hindrances, research in this field started developing only in the second half of the XIX century. One of the first marine sites for plankton studies in the world was the Gulf of Naples (GoN), a coastal embayment of the mid-Tyrrhenian Sea in the western Mediterranean. The GoN is located in the temperate zone but with subtropical characteristics, under the anthropogenic impacts from one of the most densely populated areas of the Mediterranean Sea contrasted by the influence of the oligotrophic open Tyrrhenian waters. Consequently, the GoN is a mosaic of areas with different ecological conditions, where highly impacted habitats coexist with relatively pristine localities and marine protected areas. Studies on the plankton of the GoN were fostered by scientists working at the Stazione Zoologica (SZN), the first marine institution in Europe funded in 1872 by Anton Dohrn. Plankton of the GoN were initially analysed to unveil their extraordinary diversity (e.g. Giesbrecht, 1892) and diverse phenology (De Angelis, 1958; Indelli, 1944; Issel, 1934). In the second half of the last century, studies also focused on plankton taxonomy, life cycles and distribution in space and time, until regular monitoring was started in 1984 with a long-term ecological research programme at the site MareChiara (LTER-MC), which is part of the Italian, European and international LTER networks as of 2006. LTER-MC is located two nautical miles off the coast of the city of Naples in an area that can be alternatively influenced by the eutrophic coastal zone and the oligotrophic waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Over the years, LTER-MC has proved to be not only a valuable observatory of the diversity, complexity and temporal variability of plankton but also a precious natural laboratory to test hypotheses that emerged from field observations (reviewed by Zingone et al., 2019). In this Special Issue, we have collected the results of the most recent ecological investigations conducted on the plankton of the GoN with the intent to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the SZN foundation, an important occasion that has been widely commemorated (Boero et al., 2023). The Special Issue focuses on phyto- and zooplankton and their environment studied through both field and laboratory investigations, with classical methods as well as taking advantage of recently developed molecular approaches. With this collection, we gather the most updated knowledge on the plankton of the GoN, with special attention to features that may shed light on general ecological questions going beyond the local scale of the sampling site. The topics investigated in this Special Issue span over different temporal scales. Some studies took into consideration a long period of the LTER-MC time series and examined trends of environmental variables (Kokoszka et al., 2023; Romillac et al., 2023) revealing that, in the case of plankton, hydrographic changes including inshore–offshore exchanges, the residence time of freshwater and the shallowing of the mixed layer depth are more important than the simple temperature increase recorded in summer. The response of plankton is seen in the increased intensity over the years of the autumnal blooms, driven by the lengthening of the stratification period, and in significant trends in specific elements of the phyto- and mesozooplankton. Examples are the increase of diatom, prasinophyte and cryptophyte contributions to the phytoplankton biomass (Saggiomo et al., 2023), the increase in carnivores chaetognaths and typical filter feeders, such as cladocerans, appendicularians, thaliaceans and the decline of copepods (Mazzocchi et al., 2023). Interestingly, the observed environmental and biological changes are contrasted by the overall stability of the whole mesozooplankton community (Mazzocchi et al., 2023), which parallels the resistance to interannual variation recently highlighted for phytoplankton communities (Longobardi et al., 2022). When it comes to individual key taxa, the need emerges to consider different aspects of their life cycle, such as fecundity and egg-hutching success, to understand the important role played by biology in shaping the observed seasonal and long-term trends in copepod populations (Carotenuto et al., 2023). At the seasonal scale, the annual patterns of seven different and stable phytoplankton associations, identified by leveraging the multiannual data on species distribution from the LTER-MC time series, show a close relationship with variables related to astronomical factors, that is, temperature, and to the coastal nature of the site, that is, salinity (Zingone et al., 2023). Functional diversity varies across the seasons, with divergent or convergent traits within each association reflecting the variable strength of environmental filtering. A high seasonal signal is also found in dinoflagellate communities investigated in a 3-year metabarcoding data set, which has also revealed a species-rich winter community, so far neglected in the current views of dinoflagellate preference for stable and warm summer conditions (Mordret et al., 2023). A whole range of classical and advanced approaches are used in the different articles to address plankton variability, including the analysis of physical–chemical, biological and diversity data from the natural environment (Kokoszka et al., 2023; Mazzocchi et al., 2023; Romillac et al., 2023; Zingone et al., 2023), laboratory experiments (Carotenuto et al., 2023; Reñé et al., 2023; Traboni et al., 2023) and more sophisticated chemotaxonomic (Saggiomo et al., 2023) and biomolecular approaches (Di Capua et al., 2023; Mordret et al., 2023; Reñé et al., 2023; Russo et al., 2023). The latter studies have addressed temporal trends in groups of species hardly detected by morphological methods, unveiling, for example, a high amount of dinoflagellate diversity not assigned to any described taxa (Mordret et al., 2023). This unknown diversity may correspond to novel species yet to be discovered and described, but may also be the effect of massive gaps in the reference data sets, that is, the dictionaries that allow translating the environmental DNA data into biologically meaningful information. In this respect, the delivery of novel reference sequences from several crustacean zooplankters of the GoN represents a relevant contribution to help interpret metabarcoding data and decipher the hidden diversity of coastal plankton communities (Di Capua et al., 2023). Molecular approaches have also proven useful and usable to address interspecific relationships of different natures. Co-occurrences derived from a 3-year metabarcoding time-series, coupled with background biological information on the size and trophic habits of their components, have revealed a trophic hierarchy and modularity in the trophic network, which would allow quick food-web re-arrangements under the shifting hydrographic conditions that are typical of the coastal area of the GoN (Russo et al., 2023). The same 3-year data set has also been explored in the first investigation on diatom parasites of the GoN, where incubation experiments are combined with microscopy observations and contextual metabarcoding analyses (Reñé et al., 2023). This multi-approach study has shown that chytrid fungi (Chytridiomycota) are a common component of the protist community in the GoN and would deserve quantification with specific techniques to assess their role in the mortality of their hosts. Besides metabarcoding, another special technique, the stable isotope analysis, has provided details of trophic interactions relevant to unveil the complexity of planktonic food webs, which can buffer the environmental variability caused by the specific hydrographic features of the GoN (Merquiol et al., 2023). Finally, laboratory experiments have revealed that copepod daily intake of food is not affected significantly by the presence of microplastics, which are presently one of the most concerning threats to marine habitats and organisms, likely because of their ability to avoid those particles and flexible feeding habits (Traboni et al., 2023). The studies presented in this Special Issue add many new pieces to the complex puzzle of the plankton ecosystem in the GoN, at the same time opening new questions and providing indications for new studies to be developed in the future. Mainly the topics of trophic and parasitic interactions have only started to be explored and highlight the need to take into consideration all levels of the network that connects marine planktonic organisms. While trends are observed in some components of the system, it is necessary to go beyond descriptions and take into consideration the life cycles and reproductive traits of plankton species, along with other functional aspects that allow the unveiling of the mechanism underlying those trends, thus opening the way to the forecast of future scenarios under changing environmental conditions. In this respect, both classical and laboratory studies, coupled with the molecular information obtained from natural populations and interpreted in the light of background knowledge, are expected to provide a formidable new asset to understand plankton and predict their changes in the coming years. In addition to the contribution to the knowledge of the GoN ecosystem, the studies collected in this Special Issue not only emphasize the specificity of the area but also shed light on several aspects of the plankton ecology that go beyond the local scale, pointing to highlight the pivotal role of long-term investigation sites as testbeds for wide-ranging ecological questions. Not applicable. None. Not applicable.","PeriodicalId":18330,"journal":{"name":"Marine Ecology","volume":"20 13","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"The Gulf of Naples as a model system for plankton ecology studies\",\"authors\":\"Adriana Zingone, Domenico D'Alelio, Maria Grazia Mazzocchi\",\"doi\":\"10.1111/maec.12779\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Plankton play a fundamental role in coastal and oceanic ecosystems as a key component of biogeochemical cycles and pelagic trophic webs and contribute to determining and maintaining the health of the oceans. More than half of the world's population living along the coasts relies on services offered by plankton in terms of seafood availability and seawater quality, at the same time altering coastal margins and affecting marine ecosystems (Vitousek et al., 1997). Therefore, monitoring, quantifying and understanding the responses of plankton to the variability of the coastal environment represent an urgent challenge to the scientific community, and even more so in an epoch of rapid changes. Yet, because of the prevalent microscopic nature of planktonic organisms and logistic hindrances, research in this field started developing only in the second half of the XIX century. One of the first marine sites for plankton studies in the world was the Gulf of Naples (GoN), a coastal embayment of the mid-Tyrrhenian Sea in the western Mediterranean. The GoN is located in the temperate zone but with subtropical characteristics, under the anthropogenic impacts from one of the most densely populated areas of the Mediterranean Sea contrasted by the influence of the oligotrophic open Tyrrhenian waters. Consequently, the GoN is a mosaic of areas with different ecological conditions, where highly impacted habitats coexist with relatively pristine localities and marine protected areas. Studies on the plankton of the GoN were fostered by scientists working at the Stazione Zoologica (SZN), the first marine institution in Europe funded in 1872 by Anton Dohrn. Plankton of the GoN were initially analysed to unveil their extraordinary diversity (e.g. Giesbrecht, 1892) and diverse phenology (De Angelis, 1958; Indelli, 1944; Issel, 1934). In the second half of the last century, studies also focused on plankton taxonomy, life cycles and distribution in space and time, until regular monitoring was started in 1984 with a long-term ecological research programme at the site MareChiara (LTER-MC), which is part of the Italian, European and international LTER networks as of 2006. LTER-MC is located two nautical miles off the coast of the city of Naples in an area that can be alternatively influenced by the eutrophic coastal zone and the oligotrophic waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Over the years, LTER-MC has proved to be not only a valuable observatory of the diversity, complexity and temporal variability of plankton but also a precious natural laboratory to test hypotheses that emerged from field observations (reviewed by Zingone et al., 2019). In this Special Issue, we have collected the results of the most recent ecological investigations conducted on the plankton of the GoN with the intent to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the SZN foundation, an important occasion that has been widely commemorated (Boero et al., 2023). The Special Issue focuses on phyto- and zooplankton and their environment studied through both field and laboratory investigations, with classical methods as well as taking advantage of recently developed molecular approaches. With this collection, we gather the most updated knowledge on the plankton of the GoN, with special attention to features that may shed light on general ecological questions going beyond the local scale of the sampling site. The topics investigated in this Special Issue span over different temporal scales. Some studies took into consideration a long period of the LTER-MC time series and examined trends of environmental variables (Kokoszka et al., 2023; Romillac et al., 2023) revealing that, in the case of plankton, hydrographic changes including inshore–offshore exchanges, the residence time of freshwater and the shallowing of the mixed layer depth are more important than the simple temperature increase recorded in summer. The response of plankton is seen in the increased intensity over the years of the autumnal blooms, driven by the lengthening of the stratification period, and in significant trends in specific elements of the phyto- and mesozooplankton. Examples are the increase of diatom, prasinophyte and cryptophyte contributions to the phytoplankton biomass (Saggiomo et al., 2023), the increase in carnivores chaetognaths and typical filter feeders, such as cladocerans, appendicularians, thaliaceans and the decline of copepods (Mazzocchi et al., 2023). Interestingly, the observed environmental and biological changes are contrasted by the overall stability of the whole mesozooplankton community (Mazzocchi et al., 2023), which parallels the resistance to interannual variation recently highlighted for phytoplankton communities (Longobardi et al., 2022). When it comes to individual key taxa, the need emerges to consider different aspects of their life cycle, such as fecundity and egg-hutching success, to understand the important role played by biology in shaping the observed seasonal and long-term trends in copepod populations (Carotenuto et al., 2023). At the seasonal scale, the annual patterns of seven different and stable phytoplankton associations, identified by leveraging the multiannual data on species distribution from the LTER-MC time series, show a close relationship with variables related to astronomical factors, that is, temperature, and to the coastal nature of the site, that is, salinity (Zingone et al., 2023). Functional diversity varies across the seasons, with divergent or convergent traits within each association reflecting the variable strength of environmental filtering. A high seasonal signal is also found in dinoflagellate communities investigated in a 3-year metabarcoding data set, which has also revealed a species-rich winter community, so far neglected in the current views of dinoflagellate preference for stable and warm summer conditions (Mordret et al., 2023). A whole range of classical and advanced approaches are used in the different articles to address plankton variability, including the analysis of physical–chemical, biological and diversity data from the natural environment (Kokoszka et al., 2023; Mazzocchi et al., 2023; Romillac et al., 2023; Zingone et al., 2023), laboratory experiments (Carotenuto et al., 2023; Reñé et al., 2023; Traboni et al., 2023) and more sophisticated chemotaxonomic (Saggiomo et al., 2023) and biomolecular approaches (Di Capua et al., 2023; Mordret et al., 2023; Reñé et al., 2023; Russo et al., 2023). The latter studies have addressed temporal trends in groups of species hardly detected by morphological methods, unveiling, for example, a high amount of dinoflagellate diversity not assigned to any described taxa (Mordret et al., 2023). This unknown diversity may correspond to novel species yet to be discovered and described, but may also be the effect of massive gaps in the reference data sets, that is, the dictionaries that allow translating the environmental DNA data into biologically meaningful information. In this respect, the delivery of novel reference sequences from several crustacean zooplankters of the GoN represents a relevant contribution to help interpret metabarcoding data and decipher the hidden diversity of coastal plankton communities (Di Capua et al., 2023). Molecular approaches have also proven useful and usable to address interspecific relationships of different natures. Co-occurrences derived from a 3-year metabarcoding time-series, coupled with background biological information on the size and trophic habits of their components, have revealed a trophic hierarchy and modularity in the trophic network, which would allow quick food-web re-arrangements under the shifting hydrographic conditions that are typical of the coastal area of the GoN (Russo et al., 2023). The same 3-year data set has also been explored in the first investigation on diatom parasites of the GoN, where incubation experiments are combined with microscopy observations and contextual metabarcoding analyses (Reñé et al., 2023). This multi-approach study has shown that chytrid fungi (Chytridiomycota) are a common component of the protist community in the GoN and would deserve quantification with specific techniques to assess their role in the mortality of their hosts. Besides metabarcoding, another special technique, the stable isotope analysis, has provided details of trophic interactions relevant to unveil the complexity of planktonic food webs, which can buffer the environmental variability caused by the specific hydrographic features of the GoN (Merquiol et al., 2023). Finally, laboratory experiments have revealed that copepod daily intake of food is not affected significantly by the presence of microplastics, which are presently one of the most concerning threats to marine habitats and organisms, likely because of their ability to avoid those particles and flexible feeding habits (Traboni et al., 2023). The studies presented in this Special Issue add many new pieces to the complex puzzle of the plankton ecosystem in the GoN, at the same time opening new questions and providing indications for new studies to be developed in the future. Mainly the topics of trophic and parasitic interactions have only started to be explored and highlight the need to take into consideration all levels of the network that connects marine planktonic organisms. While trends are observed in some components of the system, it is necessary to go beyond descriptions and take into consideration the life cycles and reproductive traits of plankton species, along with other functional aspects that allow the unveiling of the mechanism underlying those trends, thus opening the way to the forecast of future scenarios under changing environmental conditions. In this respect, both classical and laboratory studies, coupled with the molecular information obtained from natural populations and interpreted in the light of background knowledge, are expected to provide a formidable new asset to understand plankton and predict their changes in the coming years. In addition to the contribution to the knowledge of the GoN ecosystem, the studies collected in this Special Issue not only emphasize the specificity of the area but also shed light on several aspects of the plankton ecology that go beyond the local scale, pointing to highlight the pivotal role of long-term investigation sites as testbeds for wide-ranging ecological questions. Not applicable. None. Not applicable.\",\"PeriodicalId\":18330,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Marine Ecology\",\"volume\":\"20 13\",\"pages\":\"0\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.0000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-11-06\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Marine Ecology\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1111/maec.12779\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"\",\"JCRName\":\"\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Marine Ecology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/maec.12779","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

摘要

浮游生物作为生物地球化学循环和远洋营养网的关键组成部分,在沿海和海洋生态系统中发挥着根本作用,有助于确定和维持海洋的健康。在海产品供应和海水质量方面,世界上一半以上的沿海人口依赖浮游生物提供的服务,同时改变了沿海边缘并影响了海洋生态系统(Vitousek et al., 1997)。因此,监测、量化和了解浮游生物对沿海环境变化的反应是科学界面临的一项紧迫挑战,在快速变化的时代更是如此。然而,由于浮游生物普遍具有微观性质和逻辑障碍,这一领域的研究直到19世纪下半叶才开始发展。世界上最早进行浮游生物研究的海洋地点之一是那不勒斯湾(goni),它是地中海西部第勒尼安海中部的一个沿海海湾。GoN位于温带,但具有亚热带特征,受到地中海人口最稠密地区之一的人为影响,与少营养开放的第勒尼安水域的影响形成对比。因此,尼泊尔是一个由不同生态条件的地区组成的马赛克,在这些地区,受到严重影响的栖息地与相对原始的地区和海洋保护区共存。1872年,Anton Dohrn成立了欧洲第一个海洋研究机构——国家动物学研究所(SZN),该研究所的科学家们开始了对大西洋浮游生物的研究。对印度洋浮游生物的初步分析揭示了它们非凡的多样性(如Giesbrecht, 1892)和多样的物候(De Angelis, 1958;Indelli, 1944;Issel, 1934)。在上个世纪下半叶,研究还集中在浮游生物的分类、生命周期和时空分布上,直到1984年开始定期监测,并在MareChiara (LTER- mc)站点开展了长期生态研究计划,该站点自2006年起成为意大利、欧洲和国际LTER网络的一部分。LTER-MC位于那不勒斯市海岸两海里处,该区域可交替受到富营养化海岸带和第勒尼安海贫营养化水域的影响。多年来,lr - mc已被证明不仅是浮游生物多样性、复杂性和时间变异性的宝贵观测站,也是检验实地观测中出现的假设的宝贵天然实验室(由Zingone等人审查,2019)。在本期特刊中,我们收集了最近对湄公河浮游生物进行的生态调查的结果,目的是庆祝SZN成立150周年,这是一个被广泛纪念的重要时刻(Boero et al., 2023)。本期特刊通过野外和实验室调查,采用经典方法和最新发展的分子方法,重点介绍植物和浮游动物及其环境。通过这些收集,我们收集了关于墨西哥湾浮游生物的最新知识,并特别关注可能揭示超出采样地点局部尺度的一般生态问题的特征。本期特刊调查的主题跨越了不同的时间尺度。一些研究考虑了较长时期的lr - mc时间序列,并检查了环境变量的趋势(Kokoszka等人,2023;Romillac et al., 2023)揭示了对于浮游生物而言,包括近岸交换、淡水停留时间和混合层深度变浅在内的水文变化比夏季记录的简单温度升高更为重要。浮游生物的反应体现在,由于分层期延长,秋季水华的强度逐年增加,以及浮游植物和中浮游动物的特定元素的显著趋势。例如,硅藻、裸生植物和隐生植物对浮游植物生物量的贡献增加(Saggiomo等,2023),食肉动物毛囊动物和典型滤食性动物(如枝海洋动物、尾尾动物、海藻类)的增加以及桡足类动物的减少(Mazzocchi等,2023)。有趣的是,观察到的环境和生物变化与整个中浮游动物群落的总体稳定性形成对比(Mazzocchi等人,2023),这与最近浮游植物群落对年际变化的抵抗力相似(Longobardi等人,2022)。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
The Gulf of Naples as a model system for plankton ecology studies
Plankton play a fundamental role in coastal and oceanic ecosystems as a key component of biogeochemical cycles and pelagic trophic webs and contribute to determining and maintaining the health of the oceans. More than half of the world's population living along the coasts relies on services offered by plankton in terms of seafood availability and seawater quality, at the same time altering coastal margins and affecting marine ecosystems (Vitousek et al., 1997). Therefore, monitoring, quantifying and understanding the responses of plankton to the variability of the coastal environment represent an urgent challenge to the scientific community, and even more so in an epoch of rapid changes. Yet, because of the prevalent microscopic nature of planktonic organisms and logistic hindrances, research in this field started developing only in the second half of the XIX century. One of the first marine sites for plankton studies in the world was the Gulf of Naples (GoN), a coastal embayment of the mid-Tyrrhenian Sea in the western Mediterranean. The GoN is located in the temperate zone but with subtropical characteristics, under the anthropogenic impacts from one of the most densely populated areas of the Mediterranean Sea contrasted by the influence of the oligotrophic open Tyrrhenian waters. Consequently, the GoN is a mosaic of areas with different ecological conditions, where highly impacted habitats coexist with relatively pristine localities and marine protected areas. Studies on the plankton of the GoN were fostered by scientists working at the Stazione Zoologica (SZN), the first marine institution in Europe funded in 1872 by Anton Dohrn. Plankton of the GoN were initially analysed to unveil their extraordinary diversity (e.g. Giesbrecht, 1892) and diverse phenology (De Angelis, 1958; Indelli, 1944; Issel, 1934). In the second half of the last century, studies also focused on plankton taxonomy, life cycles and distribution in space and time, until regular monitoring was started in 1984 with a long-term ecological research programme at the site MareChiara (LTER-MC), which is part of the Italian, European and international LTER networks as of 2006. LTER-MC is located two nautical miles off the coast of the city of Naples in an area that can be alternatively influenced by the eutrophic coastal zone and the oligotrophic waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Over the years, LTER-MC has proved to be not only a valuable observatory of the diversity, complexity and temporal variability of plankton but also a precious natural laboratory to test hypotheses that emerged from field observations (reviewed by Zingone et al., 2019). In this Special Issue, we have collected the results of the most recent ecological investigations conducted on the plankton of the GoN with the intent to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the SZN foundation, an important occasion that has been widely commemorated (Boero et al., 2023). The Special Issue focuses on phyto- and zooplankton and their environment studied through both field and laboratory investigations, with classical methods as well as taking advantage of recently developed molecular approaches. With this collection, we gather the most updated knowledge on the plankton of the GoN, with special attention to features that may shed light on general ecological questions going beyond the local scale of the sampling site. The topics investigated in this Special Issue span over different temporal scales. Some studies took into consideration a long period of the LTER-MC time series and examined trends of environmental variables (Kokoszka et al., 2023; Romillac et al., 2023) revealing that, in the case of plankton, hydrographic changes including inshore–offshore exchanges, the residence time of freshwater and the shallowing of the mixed layer depth are more important than the simple temperature increase recorded in summer. The response of plankton is seen in the increased intensity over the years of the autumnal blooms, driven by the lengthening of the stratification period, and in significant trends in specific elements of the phyto- and mesozooplankton. Examples are the increase of diatom, prasinophyte and cryptophyte contributions to the phytoplankton biomass (Saggiomo et al., 2023), the increase in carnivores chaetognaths and typical filter feeders, such as cladocerans, appendicularians, thaliaceans and the decline of copepods (Mazzocchi et al., 2023). Interestingly, the observed environmental and biological changes are contrasted by the overall stability of the whole mesozooplankton community (Mazzocchi et al., 2023), which parallels the resistance to interannual variation recently highlighted for phytoplankton communities (Longobardi et al., 2022). When it comes to individual key taxa, the need emerges to consider different aspects of their life cycle, such as fecundity and egg-hutching success, to understand the important role played by biology in shaping the observed seasonal and long-term trends in copepod populations (Carotenuto et al., 2023). At the seasonal scale, the annual patterns of seven different and stable phytoplankton associations, identified by leveraging the multiannual data on species distribution from the LTER-MC time series, show a close relationship with variables related to astronomical factors, that is, temperature, and to the coastal nature of the site, that is, salinity (Zingone et al., 2023). Functional diversity varies across the seasons, with divergent or convergent traits within each association reflecting the variable strength of environmental filtering. A high seasonal signal is also found in dinoflagellate communities investigated in a 3-year metabarcoding data set, which has also revealed a species-rich winter community, so far neglected in the current views of dinoflagellate preference for stable and warm summer conditions (Mordret et al., 2023). A whole range of classical and advanced approaches are used in the different articles to address plankton variability, including the analysis of physical–chemical, biological and diversity data from the natural environment (Kokoszka et al., 2023; Mazzocchi et al., 2023; Romillac et al., 2023; Zingone et al., 2023), laboratory experiments (Carotenuto et al., 2023; Reñé et al., 2023; Traboni et al., 2023) and more sophisticated chemotaxonomic (Saggiomo et al., 2023) and biomolecular approaches (Di Capua et al., 2023; Mordret et al., 2023; Reñé et al., 2023; Russo et al., 2023). The latter studies have addressed temporal trends in groups of species hardly detected by morphological methods, unveiling, for example, a high amount of dinoflagellate diversity not assigned to any described taxa (Mordret et al., 2023). This unknown diversity may correspond to novel species yet to be discovered and described, but may also be the effect of massive gaps in the reference data sets, that is, the dictionaries that allow translating the environmental DNA data into biologically meaningful information. In this respect, the delivery of novel reference sequences from several crustacean zooplankters of the GoN represents a relevant contribution to help interpret metabarcoding data and decipher the hidden diversity of coastal plankton communities (Di Capua et al., 2023). Molecular approaches have also proven useful and usable to address interspecific relationships of different natures. Co-occurrences derived from a 3-year metabarcoding time-series, coupled with background biological information on the size and trophic habits of their components, have revealed a trophic hierarchy and modularity in the trophic network, which would allow quick food-web re-arrangements under the shifting hydrographic conditions that are typical of the coastal area of the GoN (Russo et al., 2023). The same 3-year data set has also been explored in the first investigation on diatom parasites of the GoN, where incubation experiments are combined with microscopy observations and contextual metabarcoding analyses (Reñé et al., 2023). This multi-approach study has shown that chytrid fungi (Chytridiomycota) are a common component of the protist community in the GoN and would deserve quantification with specific techniques to assess their role in the mortality of their hosts. Besides metabarcoding, another special technique, the stable isotope analysis, has provided details of trophic interactions relevant to unveil the complexity of planktonic food webs, which can buffer the environmental variability caused by the specific hydrographic features of the GoN (Merquiol et al., 2023). Finally, laboratory experiments have revealed that copepod daily intake of food is not affected significantly by the presence of microplastics, which are presently one of the most concerning threats to marine habitats and organisms, likely because of their ability to avoid those particles and flexible feeding habits (Traboni et al., 2023). The studies presented in this Special Issue add many new pieces to the complex puzzle of the plankton ecosystem in the GoN, at the same time opening new questions and providing indications for new studies to be developed in the future. Mainly the topics of trophic and parasitic interactions have only started to be explored and highlight the need to take into consideration all levels of the network that connects marine planktonic organisms. While trends are observed in some components of the system, it is necessary to go beyond descriptions and take into consideration the life cycles and reproductive traits of plankton species, along with other functional aspects that allow the unveiling of the mechanism underlying those trends, thus opening the way to the forecast of future scenarios under changing environmental conditions. In this respect, both classical and laboratory studies, coupled with the molecular information obtained from natural populations and interpreted in the light of background knowledge, are expected to provide a formidable new asset to understand plankton and predict their changes in the coming years. In addition to the contribution to the knowledge of the GoN ecosystem, the studies collected in this Special Issue not only emphasize the specificity of the area but also shed light on several aspects of the plankton ecology that go beyond the local scale, pointing to highlight the pivotal role of long-term investigation sites as testbeds for wide-ranging ecological questions. Not applicable. None. Not applicable.
求助全文
通过发布文献求助,成功后即可免费获取论文全文。 去求助
来源期刊
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
期刊最新文献
Filter feeders living on suspension feeders: New insights into the lifestyle and distribution of Arcturidae Dana, 1849 (Crustacea: Isopoda) around Iceland Mass Mortality of the Invasive Sea Urchin Diadema setosum in Türkiye, Eastern Mediterranean Possibly Reveals Vibrio Bacteria Infection Genetic Differentiation Between Sympatric Crustacean Decapods Inhabiting the Mediterranean Sea: Implications to Avoid Larval and Adult Misidentification Meiofaunal Dynamics in Oceanic Islands: Insights From Spatial Distribution, Substrate Influence and Connectivity The Fatty Acid Profile of the Deep‐Sea Gastropod Parvaplustrum wareni Indicates a Dominant Role of Chemosynthesis in the Nutrition of the Hydrothermal Vent Ecosystem (Piip Volcano)
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1