ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Aquatic Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1654505
The impact of temperature and sediment resuspension on microbial eukaryote recruitment from shallow Baltic Sea sediment
Provisionally accepted
- Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research (LG), Warnemünde, Germany
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Germination from plankton resting stages is often inhibited by burial and anoxic conditions in the sediment. Resuspension of surface sediments by storms might, therefore, represents an important mechanism that facilitates germination. We investigated the impact of sediment resuspension on planktonic microbial eukaryote community composition, assessed through 18S rRNA gene metabarcoding, by incubating sediment cores from Greifswald Bay (Baltic Sea) either undisturbed or with regular resuspension events for four months at rising temperatures. In this experiment, the planktonic eukaryotic community composition was mostly characterized by temporal species succession likely driven by the gradual increase in water temperature. Furthermore, NO3 - concentrations and sediment resuspension were identified as important factors shaping the eukaryotic community composition. Nitrate concentrations were significantly higher in the control than in the mixed sediment cores, as resuspension likely caused a significant loss of nitrate to the sediment. Unexpectedly, eukaryotic alpha diversity was not significantly altered by mixing, but the community composition changed due to germination of previously buried species. These results highlight the importance of sediment resuspension for activation of buried resting stages and for altering nutrient concentrations in the water column impacting planktonic microbial community composition.
Keywords: sediment resuspension, eukaryotic microbial community composition, Resting stages, Germination, metabarcoding, Shallow water
Received: 26 Jun 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sassenhagen, Herlemann, Gentsch, Kremp, Labrenz and Dutz. 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: Ingrid Sassenhagen, ingrid.sassenhagen@io-warnemuende.de
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