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The relationship between two Synechococcus strains and heterotrophic bacterial communities and its associated carbon flow

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Abstract

Synechococcus accounts for a considerable proportion of oceanic carbon fixation and has close relation with heterotrophic bacteria at sub-micrometre scales. However, the relationship between Synechococcus and heterotrophic bacteria and their impacts on oceanic carbon flow is not well understood. Here, we separately co-cultured the heterotrophic bacterial community with two different axenic Synechococcus strains, i.e. Synechococcus sp. PCC7002 and Synechococcus sp. CCMP1334. The dissolved organic carbon (DOC) released by Synechococcus promoted the rapid growth of heterotrophic bacteria. Due in part to the slight differences in the Synechococcus-derived DOC composition, the starting heterotrophic bacterial community was reshaped by the two Synechococcus strains into significantly divergent community structures, suggesting that different heterotrophic bacterial communities may gather around different Synechococcus strains and interact with each other in the oceans. Interestingly, the two Synechococcus strains also released some very stable humic-like DOC components that resisted use by heterotrophic bacteria and were gradually accumulated in seawater, implying that in addition to photosynthetic carbon fixation, Synechococcus may also play an important role in long-term ocean carbon sequestration by producing relatively recalcitrant DOC. Moreover, the interactions of Synechococcus and the heterotrophic bacterial communities could increase aggregate formation and particle sinking, which can likely enhance the contribution of Synechococcus to the magnitude of the sinking biological carbon pump in the oceans.

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Data availability

The sequences used in the study have been deposited into the NCBI Sequence Read Archive and are available under the accession number PRJNA637938.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFA0601402), the Senior User Project of RV KEXUE (KEXUE2019GZ03) supported by Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, NSFC projects (no. 31700104, U1906216), a Key R&D projects in Shandong Province (2019GHY112037), the DICP&QIBEBT (DICP&QIBEBT UN201803), the QIBEBT (QIBEBT ZZBS 201805), Dalian National Laboratory For Clean Energy (DNL), CAS, and Key Lab of Marine Bioactive Substance and Modern Analytical Technique, SOA (MBSMAT-2018-02). This study is a contribution to the international IMBER project.

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  1. Zenghu Zhang and Lili Tang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Biofuels, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Energy Genetics, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266101, China

    Zenghu Zhang, Lili Tang, Yantao Liang, Gang Li, Hongmei Li & Yongyu Zhang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Lili Tang & Yongyu Zhang

  3. Department of Ocean Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s Newfoundland, A1C 5S7, Canada

    Richard B. Rivkin

  4. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361101, China

    Nianzhi Jiao

  5. Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Yongyu Zhang

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  1. Zenghu Zhang
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  2. Lili Tang
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Contributions

Zenghu Zhang: formal analysis, visualization, writing—original draft. Lili Tang: investigation, validation, writing—original draft. Yantao Liang: methodology. Gang Li: writing—review and editing. Hongmei Li: methodology. Richard B. Rivkin: validation. Nianzhi Jiao: supervision. Yongyu Zhang: conceptualization, supervision, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Yongyu Zhang.

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Zhang, Z., Tang, L., Liang, Y. et al. The relationship between two Synechococcus strains and heterotrophic bacterial communities and its associated carbon flow. J Appl Phycol 33, 953–966 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-020-02343-6

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