Population attenuation in zooplankton communities during transoceanic transfer in ballast water

Successful biological invasion requires introduction of a viable population of a nonindigenous species (NIS). Rarely have ecologists assessed changes in populations while entrained in invasion pathways. Here, we investigate how zooplankton communities resident in ballast water change during transoce...

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Main Authors: Ghabooli, Sara, Zhan, Aibin, Paolucci, Esteban, Hernandez, Marco R., Briski, Elizabeta, Cristescu, Melania E., MacIsaac, Hugh J.
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2016
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5016640/
id pubmed-5016640
recordtype oai_dc
spelling pubmed-50166402016-09-19 Population attenuation in zooplankton communities during transoceanic transfer in ballast water Ghabooli, Sara Zhan, Aibin Paolucci, Esteban Hernandez, Marco R. Briski, Elizabeta Cristescu, Melania E. MacIsaac, Hugh J. Original Research Successful biological invasion requires introduction of a viable population of a nonindigenous species (NIS). Rarely have ecologists assessed changes in populations while entrained in invasion pathways. Here, we investigate how zooplankton communities resident in ballast water change during transoceanic voyages. We used next‐generation sequencing technology to sequence a nuclear small subunit ribosomal DNA fragment of zooplankton from ballast water during initial, middle, and final segments as a vessel transited between Canada and Brazil. Operational taxonomic unit (OTU) diversity decreased as voyage duration increased, indicating loss of community‐based genetic diversity and development of bottlenecks for zooplankton taxa prior to discharge of ballast water. On average, we observed 47, 26, and 24 OTUs in initial, middle, and final samples, respectively. Moreover, a comparison of genetic diversity within taxa indicated likely attenuation of OTUs in final relative to initial samples. Abundance of the most common taxa (copepods) declined in all final relative to initial samples. Some taxa (e.g., Copepoda) were represented by a high number of OTUs throughout the voyage, and thus had a high level of intraspecific genetic variation. It is not clear whether genotypes that were most successful in surviving transit in ballast water will be the most successful upon introduction to novel environments. This study highlights that population bottlenecks may be common prior to introduction of NIS to new ecosystems. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2016-08-02 /pmc/articles/PMC5016640/ /pubmed/27648234 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2349 Text en © 2016 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
repository_type Open Access Journal
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building NCBI PubMed
collection Online Access
language English
format Online
author Ghabooli, Sara
Zhan, Aibin
Paolucci, Esteban
Hernandez, Marco R.
Briski, Elizabeta
Cristescu, Melania E.
MacIsaac, Hugh J.
spellingShingle Ghabooli, Sara
Zhan, Aibin
Paolucci, Esteban
Hernandez, Marco R.
Briski, Elizabeta
Cristescu, Melania E.
MacIsaac, Hugh J.
Population attenuation in zooplankton communities during transoceanic transfer in ballast water
author_facet Ghabooli, Sara
Zhan, Aibin
Paolucci, Esteban
Hernandez, Marco R.
Briski, Elizabeta
Cristescu, Melania E.
MacIsaac, Hugh J.
author_sort Ghabooli, Sara
title Population attenuation in zooplankton communities during transoceanic transfer in ballast water
title_short Population attenuation in zooplankton communities during transoceanic transfer in ballast water
title_full Population attenuation in zooplankton communities during transoceanic transfer in ballast water
title_fullStr Population attenuation in zooplankton communities during transoceanic transfer in ballast water
title_full_unstemmed Population attenuation in zooplankton communities during transoceanic transfer in ballast water
title_sort population attenuation in zooplankton communities during transoceanic transfer in ballast water
description Successful biological invasion requires introduction of a viable population of a nonindigenous species (NIS). Rarely have ecologists assessed changes in populations while entrained in invasion pathways. Here, we investigate how zooplankton communities resident in ballast water change during transoceanic voyages. We used next‐generation sequencing technology to sequence a nuclear small subunit ribosomal DNA fragment of zooplankton from ballast water during initial, middle, and final segments as a vessel transited between Canada and Brazil. Operational taxonomic unit (OTU) diversity decreased as voyage duration increased, indicating loss of community‐based genetic diversity and development of bottlenecks for zooplankton taxa prior to discharge of ballast water. On average, we observed 47, 26, and 24 OTUs in initial, middle, and final samples, respectively. Moreover, a comparison of genetic diversity within taxa indicated likely attenuation of OTUs in final relative to initial samples. Abundance of the most common taxa (copepods) declined in all final relative to initial samples. Some taxa (e.g., Copepoda) were represented by a high number of OTUs throughout the voyage, and thus had a high level of intraspecific genetic variation. It is not clear whether genotypes that were most successful in surviving transit in ballast water will be the most successful upon introduction to novel environments. This study highlights that population bottlenecks may be common prior to introduction of NIS to new ecosystems.
publisher John Wiley and Sons Inc.
publishDate 2016
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5016640/
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