Sierra Nevada mountain lake microbial communities are structured by temperature, resources and geographic location

Schulhof, Marika A.; Allen, Andrew E.; Allen, Eric E.; Mladenov, Natalie; McCrow, John P.; Jones, Natalie T.; Blanton, Jessica M.; Cavalheri, Hamanda B.; Kaul, Drishti; Symons, Celia C.; Shurin, Jonathan B.

doi:10.1111/mec.15469

Cited by 20 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Water chemistry parameters often shape aquatic system due to their direct impact on microbial metabolism. Nutrients, and by extension, trophic status, have a prime effect on microbial community structure ( Lindström, 2000 ) and diversity, with higher richness associated with more eutrophic lakes ( Kiersztyn et al, 2019 ), yet richness tends to decrease with N fertilization ( Schulhof et al, 2020 ). As an integrator of landscape properties, pH is often identified as one of the main factors influencing microbial community structure ( Lindström et al, 2005 ; Fierer and Jackson, 2006 ; Logue and Lindström, 2008 ; Niño-García et al, 2016 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-temporal connectivity of the aquatic microbiome associated with cyanobacterial blooms along a Great Lake riverine-lacustrine continuum

Crèvecoeur

Edge²,

Watson³

et al. 2023

Front. Microbiol.

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Lake Erie is subject to recurring events of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cHABs), but measures of nutrients and total phytoplankton biomass seem to be poor predictors of cHABs when taken individually. A more integrated approach at the watershed scale may improve our understanding of the conditions that lead to bloom formation, such as assessing the physico-chemical and biological factors that influence the lake microbial community, as well as identifying the linkages between Lake Erie and the surrounding watershed. Within the scope of the Government of Canada’s Genomics Research and Development Initiative (GRDI) Ecobiomics project, we used high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene to characterize the spatio-temporal variability of the aquatic microbiome in the Thames River–Lake St. Clair-Detroit River–Lake Erie aquatic corridor. We found that the aquatic microbiome was structured along the flow path and influenced mainly by higher nutrient concentrations in the Thames River, and higher temperature and pH downstream in Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie. The same dominant bacterial phyla were detected along the water continuum, changing only in relative abundance. At finer taxonomical level, however, there was a clear shift in the cyanobacterial community, with Planktothrix dominating in the Thames River and Microcystis and Synechococcus in Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie. Mantel correlations highlighted the importance of geographic distance in shaping the microbial community structure. The fact that a high proportion of microbial sequences found in the Western Basin of Lake Erie were also identified in the Thames River, indicated a high degree of connectivity and dispersal within the system, where mass effect induced by passive transport play an important role in microbial community assembly. Nevertheless, some cyanobacterial amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) related to Microcystis, representing less than 0.1% of relative abundance in the upstream Thames River, became dominant in Lake St. Clair and Erie, suggesting selection of those ASVs based on the lake conditions. Their extremely low relative abundances in the Thames suggest additional sources are likely to contribute to the rapid development of summer and fall blooms in the Western Basin of Lake Erie. Collectively, these results, which can be applied to other watersheds, improve our understanding of the factors influencing aquatic microbial community assembly and provide new perspectives on how to better understand the occurrence of cHABs in Lake Erie and elsewhere.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-temporal connectivity of the aquatic microbiome associated with cyanobacterial blooms along a Great Lake riverine-lacustrine continuum

Crèvecoeur

Edge²,

Watson³

et al. 2023

Front. Microbiol.

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“…The dominance of large-bodied Daphnia at the montane site may be related to the higher concentration of nutrients at the low elevation site (ESM Table S4; Figures S4 and S5) which can increase Daphnia abundance through shifts in competitive hierarchies (Vanni, 1986). Additionally, we would expect communities below tree-line in the montane and sub-alpine sites to be more similar to each other than the alpine site (Schulhof et al, 2020;Symons & Shurin, 2016); however, we found that E Elev = alpine and E Fish = fishless communities were more similar to the montane site. Typically, fishless alpine lakes contain D. melanica (Knapp & Sarnelle, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legacy effects of fish but not elevation influence lake ecosystem response to environmental change

Symons

Schulhof

Cavalheri

et al. 2020

Journal of Animal Ecology

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How communities reorganize during climate change depends on the distribution of diversity within ecosystems and across landscapes. Understanding how environmental and evolutionary history constrain community resilience is critical to predicting shifts in future ecosystem function. The goal of our study was to understand how communities with different histories respond to environmental change with regard to shifts in elevation (temperature, nutrients) and introduced predators. We hypothesized that community responses to the environment would differ in ways consistent with local adaptation and initial trait structure. We transplanted plankton communities from lakes at different elevations with and without fish in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California to mesocosms at different elevations with and without fish. We examined the relative importance of the historical and experimental environment on functional (size structure, effects on lower trophic levels), community (zooplankton composition, abundance and biomass) and population (individual species abundance and biomass) responses. Communities originating from different elevations produced similar biomass at each elevation despite differences in species composition; that is, the experimental elevation, but not the elevation of origin, had a strong effect on biomass. Conversely, we detected a legacy effect of predators on plankton in the fishless environment. Daphnia pulicaria that historically coexisted with fish reached greater biomass under fishless conditions than those from fishless lakes, resulting in greater zooplankton community biomass and larger average size. Therefore, trait variation among lake populations determined the top‐down effects of fish predators. In contrast, phenotypic plasticity and local diversity were sufficient to maintain food web structure in response to changing environmental conditions associated with elevation.

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“…Although the water was sourced from downstream of the source of our experienced zooplankton community and therefore likely colonized by phytoplankton from that lake, we do not expect that differences in phytoplankton played a large role in our results. Lakes of the eastern Sierra Nevada above 2000 m of elevation are uniformly oligotrophic and characterized by a low abundance and diversity of phytoplankton (Schulhof et al 2020). A study comparing the phytoplankton compositions of our naive and experienced lakes found them to have similar communities (Thomas et al 1991).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prey naiveté alters the balance of consumptive and non‐consumptive predator effects and shapes trophic cascades in freshwater plankton

Baker

Samu

et al. 2022

Oikos

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Predators drive trophic cascades by reducing prey biomass and altering prey traits, selecting for prey that exhibit constitutive and induced anti‐predator defenses that decrease susceptibility to consumption. These defense traits are often costly, generating a tradeoff between consumptive (CEs) and non‐consumptive predator effects (NCEs). The ecological and evolutionary experience that prey share with a given predator may determine their position along this tradeoff curve, affecting the nature and strength of top–down control of ecosystems. Conceptual models predict that predator‐experienced prey suffer greater NCEs than predator–naive prey, which suffer stronger CEs and total predator effects (CEs + NCEs), but this has not been tested in diverse prey communities. We tested these predictions by comparing the effects of predation (CEs + NCEs) and predation risk (NCEs only) of planktivorous fish on food web structure in pond mesocosms with diverse natural communities of either predator‐naive or predator‐experienced zooplankton. Contrary to expectations, top–down control of zooplankton and phytoplankton biomass was strengthened by prey community experience: in systems with experienced relative to naive zooplankton communities both predation risk (NCEs only) and predation (CEs + NCEs) had stronger effects on zooplankton prey biomass and trophic cascades were twice as strong. These results show that the ecological and evolutionary experience of diverse prey communities alters the balance of consumptive and non‐consumptive predator effects and influences trophic cascade strength.

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Sierra Nevada mountain lake microbial communities are structured by temperature, resources and geographic location

Abstract: This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as

Cited by 20 publications

References 146 publications

Spatio-temporal connectivity of the aquatic microbiome associated with cyanobacterial blooms along a Great Lake riverine-lacustrine continuum

Spatio-temporal connectivity of the aquatic microbiome associated with cyanobacterial blooms along a Great Lake riverine-lacustrine continuum

Legacy effects of fish but not elevation influence lake ecosystem response to environmental change

Prey naiveté alters the balance of consumptive and non‐consumptive predator effects and shapes trophic cascades in freshwater plankton

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