ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Aquatic Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1649800
This article is part of the Research TopicPlankton Metabolisms and Interactions in Fluctuating EnvironmentsView all 9 articles
Changes in environmental conditions regulate the biodiversity of planktonic microeukarytoes mediated by the dispersal-selection relationships in river: An example of the Beipan River, Guizhou, China
Provisionally accepted
- Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
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River planktonic microeukaryotes (phytoplankton and zooplankton) underpin aquatic ecosystem function, yet how environmental change regulates their biodiversity via assembly mechanisms remains poorly understood. Using eDNA metabarcoding along China's Beipan River, partitioned by a barrier dam into environmentally heterogeneous upstream and stable downstream regions, we assessed plankton diversity and the roles of dispersal and environmental selection. Phytoplankton exhibited higher alpha-and betadiversity than zooplankton, attributed to stronger dispersal but weaker selection.Conversely, zooplankton showed higher gamma-diversity, likely due to broader niche breadths amplified by environmental heterogeneity. Upstream sites displayed significantly greater alpha-, beta-, and gamma-diversity for both groups, driven by higher environmental heterogeneity. Environmental selection dominated community assembly throughout the river, particularly influencing phytoplankton diversity. Dispersal contributed more to zooplankton gamma-diversity in the homogeneous downstream region. Biodiversity correlated strongly with environmental conditions, especially with COD and TOC levels in the variable upstream zone. Our findings demonstrate that environmental heterogeneity governs plankton biodiversity by regulating the dispersal-selection balance, providing new insights into assembly mechanisms and responses to global change in river ecosystems.
Keywords: Biodiversity, environmental DNA, Phytoplankton, Zooplankton, community assembly
Received: 19 Jun 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dong, Huang, Zhou, Ran, Wang, Qi and Shen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yanjun Shen, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
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