Lakes-scale pattern of eukaryotic phytoplankton diversity and assembly process shaped by environmental gradients in central Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Abstract

Phytoplankton are the main primary producers in aquatic ecosystems and play an important role in food web and geochemical cycles. Its diversity, community structure, and assembly process are influenced by several factors. Among these factors, climate change and human synergistic changes in water physicochemical factors and nutrient levels are the main causes. Alpine lake ecosystems are relatively weak and extremely sensitive to global climate change. However, the impact of climate change on phytoplankton in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) lakes and their responses are still unclear. In this study, we systematically analyzed the diversity, environmental drivers, and assembly process of phytoplankton community in the central QTP lakes. The phytoplankton of these lakes can be primarily distinguished into freshwater and brackish types, with significant differences in species diversity and community dissimilarity. Both types shared nearly same key environmental factors that significantly affecting phytoplankton such as EC, and brackish lakes were also positively correlative with TN, Ca and Si. Stochastic process was predominant in phytoplankton assembly because of the harsh environmental condition. Additionally, freshwater and brackish lakes were dominated by dispersal limitation and heterogeneous selection respectively. Alpine lakes had significant EC thresholds, and their diversity and assembly processes changed significantly around the thresholds. Owing to warming and moistening of QTP during the past decades, some significant changes have occurred, such as gradual decrease in lake EC. The present findings have important implications for understanding and predicting the response of lake phytoplankton communities to climate change and for making decisions to protect the ecological resources of alpine lakes.

Diversity Patterns of Eukaryotic Phytoplankton in the Medog Section of the Yarlung Zangbo River

“…In recent years, the Uthermoll sedimentation method and microscopic observation for algae identification have encountered numerous challenges due to the phenotypic plasticity and cryptic diversity of algae [40]. Metabarcoding sequencing offers an improved alternative to overcome these limitations associated with traditional microscopic identification techniques (Blaxter, 2004).…”