bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/714816; this version posted July 25, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-ND 4.0 International license. Hydrothermal activity and water mass composition shape microbial eukaryote diversity and biogeography in the Okinawa Trough Margaret Mars Brisbina, Asa E. Conovera, Satoshi Mitaraia 5 a Marine Biophysics Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, Japan Correspondance M. Mars Brisbin, Marine Biophysics Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology 10 Graduate University, 1919-1 Tancha, Onna-son, Okinawa, Japan e-mail:
[email protected] Abstract Microbial eukaryotes (protists) contribute substantially to ecological functioning in 15 marine ecosystems, but factors shaping protist diversity, such as dispersal barriers and environmental selection, remain difficult to parse. Deep-sea water masses, which form geographic barriers, and hydrothermal vents, which represent isolated productivity hotspots, are ideal opportunities for studying the effects of dispersal barriers and environmental selection on protist communities. The Okinawa Trough, a deep, back-arc 20 spreading basin, contains distinct water masses in the northern and southern regions and at least twenty-five active hydrothermal vents. In this study we used metabarcoding to characterize protistan communities from fourteen stations spanning the length of the Okinawa Trough, including three hydrothermal vent sites. Significant differences in community by region and water mass were present, and protist communities in 25 hydrothermally-influenced bottom-water were significantly different from communities in other bottom waters.