BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Protistol.

Sec. Marine and Freshwater Harmful Algae and Protists

Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frpro.2025.1612811

This article is part of the Research TopicUncovering Marine Protist and Algal Diversity and its Ecological RolesView all articles

Vertical distribution of harmful algae in the sediment of Uranouchi Inlet by metabarcoding

Provisionally accepted
Hiroshi FunakiHiroshi Funaki1Chetan Chandrakant GaonkarChetan Chandrakant Gaonkar2Tomohiro NishimuraTomohiro Nishimura3Kouki TanakaKouki Tanaka1Kaito KamimuraKaito Kamimura4Tatsuya KajiTatsuya Kaji4Keizo NagasakiKeizo Nagasaki1Masao AdachiMasao Adachi1*
  • 1Kōchi University, Kochi, Japan
  • 2Texas A and M University, College Station, Texas, United States
  • 3Fisheries Technology Institute, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan
  • 4Kochi Prefectural Fisheries Experiment Station, Susaki, Japan

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Uranouchi Inlet, situated on the Pacific coast of southwestern Japan, has been a highly enclosed inlet known for yellowtail farming since 1959. Since the 1980s, harmful algal blooms (HABs) have repeatedly occurred, resulting in mass mortality of fish and shellfish. In the sediment at the inlet, the resulting cysts of the HAB species may be preserved, which reflects the history of HAB events. However, the vertical distributions of HAB species in sediment have not been elucidated.In this study, core sediment samples were analyzed by metabarcoding. The dating of each sample was cited from previous study dating the same samples. The findings revealed the presence of eleven HAB species, with notable shifts from approximately 1977-1988. The timing of the shifts corresponded to that of the development of aquaculture and the resulting eutrophication. Vertical core metabarcoding provides footprints of how HAB species composition may be influenced by anthropogenic environmental changes.

Keywords: metabarcoding, 18S rDNA, Eutrophication, Anthropogenic impact, HABs, Core sample

Received: 16 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 May 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Funaki, Gaonkar, Nishimura, Tanaka, Kamimura, Kaji, Nagasaki and Adachi. 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: Masao Adachi, Kōchi University, Kochi, Japan

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