Diversidad microbiana (procariota y eucariota) asociada a Mantos de Sargassum Pelágico y agua circundante en el Mar Caribe.

Abstract

Holopelagic species of the genus Sargassum (S. fluitans and S. natans; also known as Sargassum) have been massively landing on the Caribbean coasts since 2011, causing multiple problems. However, these brown algae also play an important role in aquatic ecosystems; they provide food and shelter to a large number of marine organisms, many of which are associated with their mantles.One of the associations that stands out is that of bacteria and other microorganisms. Considering the above, this exploratory study estimated the diversity of bacterioplankton and eukaryotic microorganisms associated with pelagic Sargassum and surrounding water, taking and comparing variables such as location or sampling area, time and type of sample. Using the 16S rDNA libraries of data collected in the Puerto Morelos reef system in the Mexican Caribbean by the InvaSAR project working group, we estimated the diversity indices of Shannon, Simpson, InvSimpson, observed ASVs, and complementary analyses such as PCoA, LEFsE, and PERMANOVA, all supported by the use of tools such as R studio and Galaxy HubLab. Prior to this, all ASVs were filtered to obtain the plastid ASVs of eukaryotic microorganisms that were aligned and assigned using the BLAST + software and the NCBI database. Significant differences were found for the microbial communities of bacterioplankton and eukaryotic microorganisms between the type of samples (Sargassum and water) and only for bacterioplankton between the sampling times. Alphaproteobacteria was the most abundant group in water samples and Gammaproteobacteria in Sargassum samples, with an enrichment of Vibrio.