Linkage between crustacean zooplankton and aquatic bacteria

Abstract

Bacteria and metazoan zooplankton (mainly crustaceans) are often viewed as 2 separate functional groups in the pelagic food webs indirectly linked via nutrient cycling and trophic cascades. Yet a zooplankter's body carries a high abundance of diverse bacteria, often at an equivalent concentration orders of magnitude higher than the ambient bacterial concentration. Zooplankton bodies are organic-rich micro-environments that support fast bacterial growth. Their physical-chemical conditions differ from those in the surrounding water and therefore select for different bacterial communities, including anaerobic bacteria that otherwise may not thrive in a well-oxygenated water column. The zooplankton body provides protection to the associated bacteria from environmental stresses similar to biofilms. Furthermore, migration by zooplankton enables rapid dispersal of bacteria over vast distances and across boundaries such as the pycnocline. In addition to live zooplankton, molts, fecal pellets, and carcasses of zooplankton all influence water column and benthic microbial communities in various ways. We review the recent advances in the study of (crustacean) zooplankton-bacteria interactions and discuss future research opportunities and challenges. Traditional aquatic microbial ecology emphasizes free-living bacteria, which represent only a fraction of the microbial world. By transcending disciplinary boundaries, microbial ecologists and zooplankton ecologists can work together to integrate the two disciplines and advance our understanding in aquatic microbial ecology.

Distinct Communities of Free-Living and Copepod-Associated Microorganisms along a Salinity Gradient in Godthåbsfjord, West Greenland

“…However, in reality Bacteria and zooplankton can be tightly linked with each other Tang et al, 2010) such that zooplankton can directly affect bacterial behavior, growth, and biogeochemical activities (Dattagupta et al, 2009). In our study, we found distinct differences between dominant freeliving and zooplankton-associated microbes, supporting the notion that zooplankton can be viewed as islands supporting distinctive communities in the microbial ocean.…”

Ecology and Physics of Bacterial Chemotaxis in the Ocean

“…This behavior allows V. fischeri to colonize the squid's light organ and thus underpins a mutualistic relationship that provides the squid with bioluminescent properties (118). Vibrio furnissii exhibits chemotaxis toward chitinous material (20,21,211), which is suggestive of associations with marine crustaceans, cephalopods, or sinking particles and might consequently result in long-range dispersal by transport on zooplankton (67,189).…”

Impacts of Mariculture on the Diversity of Bacterial Communities within Intertidal Sediments in the Northeast of China

“…Recently, molecular method-based studies have indicated that bacterial diversity in sediment has been linked with impacts of anthropogenic activities, such as increase of eutrophication and chemical pollution [9][10][11][12][13], changes in species of phytoplankton or zooplankton [14][15][16], and operating a dredging, reclamation, or remediation project [17][18][19][20]. Furthermore, some efforts have been made to study the bacterial community structure dynamics related to mariculture processes.…”