Revista de Biología Tropical ISSN: 0034-7744 [email protected] Universidad de Costa Rica Costa Rica Centeno, Carla M.; Mejía, Omar; Falcón, Luisa I. Habitat conditions drive phylogenetic structure of dominant bacterial phyla of microbialite communities from several locations in Mexico Revista de Biología Tropical, vol. 64, núm. 3, septiembre, 2016, pp. 1057-1065 Universidad de Costa Rica San Pedro de Montes de Oca, Costa Rica Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=44946472011 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Habitat conditions drive phylogenetic structure of dominant bacterial phyla of microbialite communities from several locations in Mexico Carla M. Centeno 1, Omar Mejía 1 & Luisa I. Falcón 2 1. Departamento de Zoología, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas- Instituto Politécnico Nacional , Prolongación de Carpio y Plan de Ayala s/n, Miguel Hidalgo, C.P. 11340, Distrito Federal, México; [email protected], [email protected] 2. Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Circuito exterior s/n., Ciudad Universitaria, C.P. 04510, Distrito Federal, México; [email protected] Received 16- IV -2015. Corrected 19- II -2016. Accepted 16- III -2016. Abstract: Community structure and composition are dictated by evolutionary and ecological assembly pro - cesses which are manifested in signals of, species diversity, species abundance and species relatedness. Analysis of species coexisting relatedness, has received attention as a tool to identify the processes that influence the com - position of a community within a particular habitat. In this study, we tested if microbialite genetic composition is dependent on random events versus biological/abiotical factors. This study was based on a large genetic data set of two hypervariable regions (V5 and V6) from previously generated barcoded 16S rRNA amplicons from nine microbialite communities distributed in Northeastern, Central and Southeastern Mexico collected in May and June of 2009. Genetic data of the most abundant phyla (Proteobacteria, Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia, Bacteroidetes, and Cyanobacteria) were investigated in order to state the phylogenetic structure of the complete communities as well as each phylum. For the complete dataset, Webb NTI index showed positive and significant values in the nine communities analysed, where values ranged from 31.5 in Pozas Azules I to 57.2 in Bacalar Pirate Channel; meanwhile, NRI index were positive and significant in six of the nine communities analysed with values ranging from 18.1 in Pozas Azules I to 45.1 in Río Mesquites. On the other hand, when compar - ing each individual phylum, NTI index were positive and significant in all groups, except in Cyanobacteria for which positive and significant values were only found in three localities; finally, NRI index was significant in only a few of the comparisons performed. The results suggest that habitat filtering is the main process that drives phylogenetic structure in bacterial communities associated to microbialites with the exception of Cyanobacteria where different lineages can contribute to microbialite formation and growth. Rev. Biol. Trop. 64 (3): 1057- 1065. Epub 2016 September 01. Key words: community assembly, community composition, Cyanobacteria, heterotrophic bacteria, microbial - ites, NRI, NTI. Microbialites are organo-sedimentary which first appeared during the Archaean eon structures formed by the interaction of resident (Allwood, Walter, Kamber, Marshall, & Burch, benthic microorganisms (bacteria, archaea and 2006). Nowadays, these biogenic fabrics devel - a few eukaryotes) (Burne & Moore, 1987) and op in different kinds of aquatic systems world - surrounding environmental factors (Foster et wide, from fully marine conditions (Reid et al., 2009; Westphal, Heindel, Brandano, & al., 2000) to freshwater desert ponds (Dinger, Peckman, 2010), which allow the precipita - Hendrickson, Winsborough, & Marks, 2006). tion of carbonates and / or in situ calcification, The active growing microbial-portion is verti - with the subsequent formation of lithified hori - cally stratified and represents diverse (Bolhuis zons that shape microbialite fabric (Dupraz & & Stal, 2011; Centeno et al., 2012; Mobberley, Vischer, 2005). Microbialites are considered Ortega, & Foster, 2012) and highly produc - living representatives of ancient stromatolites, tive multi-trophic microbial self-controlling Rev. Biol. Trop. (Int. J. Trop. Biol. ISSN-0034-7744) Vol. 64 (3): 1057-1065, September 2016 1057 ecosystems (Pringault, De Wit, & Camoin, In other words, both indices tend to reveal 2005; Schneider, Arp, Reimer, Reitner, & phylogenetic clustering in two levels, NTI at Daniel, 2013), where slight changes in depth the tips of the branches in a lower taxonomical correspond to marked niche boundaries (Armit - resolution, and NRI to the base of the tree at a age, Gallagher, Youngblut, Buckley, & Zinder, deep taxonomical level (Letcher, 2010). 2012). To date, it is well known that micro - The degree of phylogenetic relatedness bial communities associated to microbialites computed by NRI and NTI allows the under - are dominated by bacterial phyla including: standing of the processes (biotic or abiotic) Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria, that determine community composition (Bry - Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia and Acti - ant et al., 2008). Hence, the goal of this study nobacteria, among others (Papineau, Walker, was to evaluate if dominant bacterial phyla that Mojzsis, & Pace, 2005; Baumgartner et al., form and maintain microbialites in different 2009, Foster et al., 2009; Centeno et al., 2012; geographic locations exhibit patterns of phylo - Saghaï et al., 2015). Nevertheless, it is unclear genetic structure and if so, to elucidate if biotic if these bacterial assemblages differ between or abiotic factors are their main causal factors. locations (Martiny et al., 2006), as well as To test this, we considered a large genetic data the factors that are responsible for their com - set of two hypervariable regions (V5 and V6), munity structure and composition (Fierer & from previously generated barcoded 16S ribo - Lennon, 2011; Chong, Pearce, Convey, Yew, somal (rDNA) amplicons from microbialite & Tan, 2012). communities distributed in different geographi - Community structure and composition are cal regions of Mexico. It has been suggested driven by ecological and evolutionary pro - that environment drives biogeographic pat - cesses (Hanson, Fuhrman, Horner-Devine, & terns at a large scale, whereas competition Martiny, 2012; Pontarp, Ripa, & Lundberg, determines diversity in small neighbourhoods 2012) that can either facilitate or inhibit that (HilleRisLambers, Adler, Harpole, Levine, & a particular taxon colonizes a local habitat; Mayfield, 2012), thus we hypothesize that and can be manifested in signals of species biological ensembles present in each location relatedness, species diversity and species abun - will be driven by abiotic factors, due that each dance (Pontarp, Sjöstedt, & Lundberg, 2013). environment has different conditions of pH, Species relatedness has received attention to temperature, conductivity and available nutri - try to identify the processes that influence the ents (Centeno et al., 2012). composition of a biological ensemble. Hanson et al., (2012) proposed that selection, drift, dis - MATERIAL AND METHODS persal and mutation, are the main processes that rule microbial biogeographic patterns. In this The abundance of each microbialite phyla phylogenetic context, the use of net relatedness in each locality has been previously described index (NRI) and nearest taxon index (NTI) in Centeno et al. (2012). (Webb, 2000) has proven useful for the analy - sis of microbial phylogenetic structure within Microbialites 16S rDNA sequence selec - different communities and environments. NRI tion: Sequences of nine localities from dif - measures the overall phylogenetic distance ferent geographical regions of Mexico where between paired taxa of a particular location rel - microbialites develop were included. A perma - ative to the total gene pool (Chong et al., 2012), nent stream (RM) and two freshwater ponds (PI whereas NTI is based on the average phyloge - and PII) in Cuatro Cienegas basin, Northeastern netic distance to the nearest neighbor, and it is Mexico; Alchichica crater-lake, an athalosaline used to determine whether closely related taxa soda-lake in Central Mexico, where two micro - in a community are more related than expected bialite morphotypes develop: a spongy type by chance (Horner-Devine & Bohannan, 2006). (AS) that is widely distributed, and a columnar 1058 Rev. Biol. Trop. (Int. J. Trop. Biol. ISSN-0034-7744) Vol. 64 (3): 1057-1065, September 2016 type (AC) with a restricted distribution in the were obtained and aligned with Clustal X v.2.1 lake; and two costal lagoons sites, Sian Ka´an (Thompson, Gibson, Plewniak, Jeanmougin, (S) and Bacalar (BP, BM and BR), Southeast - Higgins, 1997) using default parameters. Maxi - ern Mexico (Fig. 1). In each locality, a total mum likelihood phylogenetic reconstructions of six microbialites were sampled manually were analyzed for different datasets: the first in May and June (summer) of 2009. In order contained all phyla, and the rest was