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Partitioning the Relative Importance of Phylogeny and Environmental Conditions on Phytoplankton Fatty Acids

Essential fatty acids (EFA), which are primarily generated by phytoplankton, limit growth and reproduction in diverse heterotrophs. The biochemical composition of phytoplankton is well-known to be governed both by phylogeny and environmental conditions. Nutrients, light, salinity, and temperature al...

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Autores principales: Galloway, Aaron W. E., Winder, Monika
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4468072/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26076015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130053
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author Galloway, Aaron W. E.
Winder, Monika
author_facet Galloway, Aaron W. E.
Winder, Monika
author_sort Galloway, Aaron W. E.
collection PubMed
description Essential fatty acids (EFA), which are primarily generated by phytoplankton, limit growth and reproduction in diverse heterotrophs. The biochemical composition of phytoplankton is well-known to be governed both by phylogeny and environmental conditions. Nutrients, light, salinity, and temperature all affect both phytoplankton growth and fatty acid composition. However, the relative importance of taxonomy and environment on algal fatty acid content has yet to be comparatively quantified, thus inhibiting predictions of changes to phytoplankton food quality in response to global environmental change. We compiled 1145 published marine and freshwater phytoplankton fatty acid profiles, consisting of 208 species from six major taxonomic groups, cultured in a wide range of environmental conditions, and used a multivariate distance-based linear model to quantify the total variation explained by each variable. Our results show that taxonomic group accounts for 3-4 times more variation in phytoplankton fatty acids than the most important growth condition variables. The results underscore that environmental conditions clearly affect phytoplankton fatty acid profiles, but also show that conditions account for relatively low variation compared to phylogeny. This suggests that the underlying mechanism determining basal food quality in aquatic habitats is primarily phytoplankton community composition, and allows for prediction of environmental-scale EFA dynamics based on phytoplankton community data. We used the compiled dataset to calculate seasonal dynamics of long-chain EFA (LCEFA; ≥C(20) ɷ-3 and ɷ-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid) concentrations and ɷ-3:ɷ-6 EFA ratios in Lake Washington using a multi-decadal phytoplankton community time series. These analyses quantify temporal dynamics of algal-derived LCEFA and food quality in a freshwater ecosystem that has undergone large community changes as a result of shifting resource management practices, highlighting diatoms, cryptophytes and dinoflagellates as key sources of LCEFA. Moreover, the analyses indicate that future shifts towards cyanobacteria-dominated communities will result in lower LCEFA content in aquatic ecosystems.
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spelling pubmed-44680722015-06-25 Partitioning the Relative Importance of Phylogeny and Environmental Conditions on Phytoplankton Fatty Acids Galloway, Aaron W. E. Winder, Monika PLoS One Research Article Essential fatty acids (EFA), which are primarily generated by phytoplankton, limit growth and reproduction in diverse heterotrophs. The biochemical composition of phytoplankton is well-known to be governed both by phylogeny and environmental conditions. Nutrients, light, salinity, and temperature all affect both phytoplankton growth and fatty acid composition. However, the relative importance of taxonomy and environment on algal fatty acid content has yet to be comparatively quantified, thus inhibiting predictions of changes to phytoplankton food quality in response to global environmental change. We compiled 1145 published marine and freshwater phytoplankton fatty acid profiles, consisting of 208 species from six major taxonomic groups, cultured in a wide range of environmental conditions, and used a multivariate distance-based linear model to quantify the total variation explained by each variable. Our results show that taxonomic group accounts for 3-4 times more variation in phytoplankton fatty acids than the most important growth condition variables. The results underscore that environmental conditions clearly affect phytoplankton fatty acid profiles, but also show that conditions account for relatively low variation compared to phylogeny. This suggests that the underlying mechanism determining basal food quality in aquatic habitats is primarily phytoplankton community composition, and allows for prediction of environmental-scale EFA dynamics based on phytoplankton community data. We used the compiled dataset to calculate seasonal dynamics of long-chain EFA (LCEFA; ≥C(20) ɷ-3 and ɷ-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid) concentrations and ɷ-3:ɷ-6 EFA ratios in Lake Washington using a multi-decadal phytoplankton community time series. These analyses quantify temporal dynamics of algal-derived LCEFA and food quality in a freshwater ecosystem that has undergone large community changes as a result of shifting resource management practices, highlighting diatoms, cryptophytes and dinoflagellates as key sources of LCEFA. Moreover, the analyses indicate that future shifts towards cyanobacteria-dominated communities will result in lower LCEFA content in aquatic ecosystems. Public Library of Science 2015-06-15 /pmc/articles/PMC4468072/ /pubmed/26076015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130053 Text en © 2015 Galloway, Winder http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Galloway, Aaron W. E.
Winder, Monika
Partitioning the Relative Importance of Phylogeny and Environmental Conditions on Phytoplankton Fatty Acids
title Partitioning the Relative Importance of Phylogeny and Environmental Conditions on Phytoplankton Fatty Acids
title_full Partitioning the Relative Importance of Phylogeny and Environmental Conditions on Phytoplankton Fatty Acids
title_fullStr Partitioning the Relative Importance of Phylogeny and Environmental Conditions on Phytoplankton Fatty Acids
title_full_unstemmed Partitioning the Relative Importance of Phylogeny and Environmental Conditions on Phytoplankton Fatty Acids
title_short Partitioning the Relative Importance of Phylogeny and Environmental Conditions on Phytoplankton Fatty Acids
title_sort partitioning the relative importance of phylogeny and environmental conditions on phytoplankton fatty acids
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4468072/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26076015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130053
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