Predation on prokaryotes in the water column and its ecological implications

Pernthaler, Jakob

doi:10.1038/nrmicro1180

Cited by 705 publications

(708 citation statements)

References 138 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

678

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Even in dilute oceanic environments, microbial interactions abound: antagonistic interactions can promote biodiversity (Czaran et al, 2002;Pernthaler, 2005), and synergistic interactions can provide sources of sustenance in complex communities (Boetius et al, 2000;Croft et al, 2005;Azam and Malfatti, 2007;Amin et al, 2009Amin et al, , 2015. Although marine microbial interactions often occur on scales of nanometers or microns (Blackburn et al, 1998;Stocker et al, 2008;Malfatti and Azam, 2009;Seymour et al, 2010), they ultimately affect entire ecosystems and global biogeochemical cycles (Azam and Malfatti, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transcriptional response of Prochlorococcus to co-culture with a marine Alteromonas: differences between strains and the involvement of putative infochemicals

Aharonovich

Sher

2016

The ISME Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Interactions between marine microorganisms may determine the dynamics of microbial communities. Here, we show that two strains of the globally abundant marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus, MED4 and MIT9313, which belong to two different ecotypes, differ markedly in their response to coculture with a marine heterotrophic bacterium, Alteromonas macleodii strain HOT1A3. HOT1A3 enhanced the growth of MIT9313 at low cell densities, yet inhibited it at a higher concentration, whereas it had no effect on MED4 growth. The early transcriptomic responses of Prochlorococcus cells after 20 h in co-culture showed no evidence of nutrient starvation, whereas the expression of genes involved in photosynthesis, protein synthesis and stress responses typically decreased in MED4 and increased in MIT313. Differential expression of genes involved in outer membrane modification, efflux transporters and, in MIT9313, lanthipeptides (prochlorosins) suggests that Prochlorococcus mount a specific response to the presence of the heterotroph in the cultures. Intriguingly, many of the differentially-expressed genes encoded short proteins, including two new families of co-culture responsive genes: CCRG-1, which is found across the Prochlorococcus lineage and CCRG-2, which contains a sequence motif involved in the export of prochlorosins and other bacteriocin-like peptides, and are indeed released from the cells into the media.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transcriptional response of Prochlorococcus to co-culture with a marine Alteromonas: differences between strains and the involvement of putative infochemicals

Aharonovich

Sher

2016

The ISME Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Besides size, differences in grazing behavior because of differences in prey type (algal versus bacterial cells) and prey characteristics have been reported (Fu et al, 2003). Also, the physiological state and the ability of bacteria to develop grazing resistance mechanisms (e.g., motility, toxin release, exopolymer formation) can affect prey selection by protists (Pernthaler, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine bacterial community structure resilience to changes in protist predation under phytoplankton bloom conditions

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To test whether protist grazing selectively affects the composition of aquatic bacterial communities, we combined high-throughput sequencing to determine bacterial community composition with analyses of grazing rates, protist and bacterial abundances and bacterial cell sizes and physiological states in a mesocosm experiment in which nutrients were added to stimulate a phytoplankton bloom. A large variability was observed in the abundances of bacteria (from 0.7 to 2.4 × 10 6 cells per ml), heterotrophic nanoflagellates (from 0.063 to 2.7 × 10 4 cells per ml) and ciliates (from 100 to 3000 cells per l) during the experiment (∼3-, 45-and 30-fold, respectively), as well as in bulk grazing rates (from 1 to 13 × 10 6 bacteria per ml per day) and bacterial production (from 3 to 379 μg per C l per day) (1 and 2 orders of magnitude, respectively). However, these strong changes in predation pressure did not induce comparable responses in bacterial community composition, indicating that bacterial community structure was resilient to changes in protist predation pressure. Overall, our results indicate that peaks in protist predation (at least those associated with phytoplankton blooms) do not necessarily trigger substantial changes in the composition of coastal marine bacterioplankton communities.

show abstract

“…For example, predators and parasites reduce bacterial densities in natural environments [17] and could thus constrain the emergence of resistance mutations. In addition, bacterial consumers exert selection for bacterial defence evolution [18,19], which could conflict with antibiotic resistance selection due to clonal interference (all mutations need to arise in the same individual) or via trade-offs (antibioticresistance mutants might be more susceptible to predation).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacterial adaptation to sublethal antibiotic gradients can change the ecological properties of multitrophic microbial communities

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Antibiotics leak constantly into environments due to widespread use in agriculture and human therapy. Although sublethal concentrations are well known to select for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, little is known about how bacterial evolution cascades through food webs, having indirect effect on species not directly affected by antibiotics (e.g. via population dynamics or pleiotropic effects). Here, we used an experimental evolution approach to test how temporal patterns of antibiotic stress, as well as migration within metapopulations, affect the evolution and ecology of microcosms containing one prey bacterium, one phage and two protist predators. We found that environmental variability, autocorrelation and migration had only subtle effects for population and evolutionary dynamics. However, unexpectedly, bacteria evolved greatest fitness increases to both antibiotics and enemies when the sublethal levels of antibiotics were highest, indicating positive pleiotropy. Crucially, bacterial adaptation cascaded through the food web leading to reduced predator-to-prey abundance ratio, lowered predator community diversity and increased instability of populations. Our results show that the presence of natural enemies can modify and even reverse the effects of antibiotics on bacteria, and that antibiotic selection can change the ecological properties of multitrophic microbial communities by having indirect effects on species not directly affected by antibiotics.

show abstract

Predation on prokaryotes in the water column and its ecological implications

Cited by 705 publications

References 138 publications

Transcriptional response of Prochlorococcus to co-culture with a marine Alteromonas: differences between strains and the involvement of putative infochemicals

Transcriptional response of Prochlorococcus to co-culture with a marine Alteromonas: differences between strains and the involvement of putative infochemicals

Marine bacterial community structure resilience to changes in protist predation under phytoplankton bloom conditions

Bacterial adaptation to sublethal antibiotic gradients can change the ecological properties of multitrophic microbial communities

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About