Diversity of phototrophic phytoplankton in Northern South China Sea indicated by rbcL analysis

摘要

Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RubisCO) as an important enzyme in photosynthetic process exists in various marine phytoplankton. To investigate the photosynthetic phytoplankton communities, conservative encoding gene of RubisCO large subunit (rbcL) was chosen as a target gene in this study. We constructed 33 clone libraries from samples collected in the north of South China Sea (NSCS) and retained 3173 sequences for further analysis. Results of BLASTp showed Stramenopiles and Haptophyta were predominant taxonomic groups in this area, while only five harmful species of Dinophyta were observed. According to the estimators of biodiversity, the photosynthetic community of N709 had very low genetic diversity and richness, which could be explained by the influence of brackish estuarine environment. Beta diversity showed that all samples could be clustered into three groups and those samples with approximately the same distance to land clustered together. Temperature, depth, and latitude of stations as biogeographic factors were indicated to have a significantly positive or negative relation with biodiversity estimators of the phytoplankton community. We concluded that biogeographic factors could be linked with difference in diversity and population of natural phytoplankton assemblages in horizontal surface of NSCS in summer 2007.