Allochthonous Groundwater Microorganisms Affect Coastal Seawater Microbial Abundance, Activity and Diversity

Keren Yanuka-Golub; Natalia Belkin; Nurit Weber; Meor Mayyani; Yehuda Levy; Itay J. Reznik; Maxim Rubin-Blum; Eyal Rahav; Yael Kiro

doi:10.1029/2023JG007610

Allochthonous Groundwater Microorganisms Affect Coastal Seawater Microbial Abundance, Activity and Diversity

Keren Yanuka-Golub^*, Natalia Belkin, Nurit Weber, Meor Mayyani, Yehuda Levy, Itay J. Reznik, Maxim Rubin-Blum, Eyal Rahav^*, Yael Kiro

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) is a globally important process supplying nutrients and trace elements to the coastal environment, thus playing a pivotal role in sustaining marine primary productivity. Along with nutrients, groundwater also contains allochthonous microbes that are discharged from the terrestrial subsurface into the sea. Currently, little is known about the interactions between groundwater-borne and coastal seawater microbial populations, and groundwater microbes' role upon introduction to coastal seawater populations. Here, we investigated seawater microbial abundance, activity and diversity in a site strongly influenced by SGD. In addition, through laboratory-controlled bottle incubations, we mimicked different mixing scenarios between groundwater and seawater. Our results demonstrate that the addition of 0.1 μm filtered groundwater stimulated heterotrophic activity and increased microbial abundance compared to control coastal seawater, whereas 0.22 μm filtration treatments induced primary productivity and Synechococcus growth. 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed a strong shift from a SAR11-rich community in the control samples to Rhodobacteraceae dominance in the <0.1 μm treatment, in agreement with Rhodobacteraceae enrichment in the SGD field site. These results suggest that microbes delivered by SGD may affect the abundance, activity and diversity of intrinsic microbes in coastal seawater, highlighting the cryptic interplay between groundwater and seawater microbes in coastal environments, which has important implications for carbon cycling.

Original language	English
Article number	e2023JG007610
Number of pages	16
Journal	Journal of geophysical research: Biogeosciences
Volume	129
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JG007610
Publication status	Published - Feb 2024

Bibliographical note

This work was partly supported by the Israeli National Monitoring Program and by the Ministry of Energy (Grant 3‐11519). We thank the Sustainability and Energy Research Initiative (SAERI) grant, the Helen Kimmel Center for Planetary Science grant and the De Botton center for Marine Sciences grant for their funding supporting this study. This study was supported by the Zuckerman Faculty Scholars program, a research grant from the Center for Scientific Excellence, a research grant from the Raymond Lapon Fund, and the Estate of David Levinson, a research grant from Paul and Tina Gardner, and a research grant from the Center for New Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science. We thank H. Michael and I. Halevy for fruitful discussions and suggestions. We also thank D. Gat for her help and advice in bioinformatics analysis.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024. The Authors.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Forestry
Aquatic Science
Ecology
Water Science and Technology
Soil Science
Atmospheric Science
Palaeontology

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10.1029/2023JG007610Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Allochthonous Groundwater Microorganisms Affect Coastal Seawater Microbial Abundance, Activity and Diversity",

abstract = "Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) is a globally important process supplying nutrients and trace elements to the coastal environment, thus playing a pivotal role in sustaining marine primary productivity. Along with nutrients, groundwater also contains allochthonous microbes that are discharged from the terrestrial subsurface into the sea. Currently, little is known about the interactions between groundwater-borne and coastal seawater microbial populations, and groundwater microbes' role upon introduction to coastal seawater populations. Here, we investigated seawater microbial abundance, activity and diversity in a site strongly influenced by SGD. In addition, through laboratory-controlled bottle incubations, we mimicked different mixing scenarios between groundwater and seawater. Our results demonstrate that the addition of 0.1 μm filtered groundwater stimulated heterotrophic activity and increased microbial abundance compared to control coastal seawater, whereas 0.22 μm filtration treatments induced primary productivity and Synechococcus growth. 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed a strong shift from a SAR11-rich community in the control samples to Rhodobacteraceae dominance in the <0.1 μm treatment, in agreement with Rhodobacteraceae enrichment in the SGD field site. These results suggest that microbes delivered by SGD may affect the abundance, activity and diversity of intrinsic microbes in coastal seawater, highlighting the cryptic interplay between groundwater and seawater microbes in coastal environments, which has important implications for carbon cycling.",

author = "Keren Yanuka-Golub and Natalia Belkin and Nurit Weber and Meor Mayyani and Yehuda Levy and Reznik, {Itay J.} and Maxim Rubin-Blum and Eyal Rahav and Yael Kiro",

note = "This work was partly supported by the Israeli National Monitoring Program and by the Ministry of Energy (Grant 3‐11519). We thank the Sustainability and Energy Research Initiative (SAERI) grant, the Helen Kimmel Center for Planetary Science grant and the De Botton center for Marine Sciences grant for their funding supporting this study. This study was supported by the Zuckerman Faculty Scholars program, a research grant from the Center for Scientific Excellence, a research grant from the Raymond Lapon Fund, and the Estate of David Levinson, a research grant from Paul and Tina Gardner, and a research grant from the Center for New Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science. We thank H. Michael and I. Halevy for fruitful discussions and suggestions. We also thank D. Gat for her help and advice in bioinformatics analysis. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2024. The Authors.",

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AU - Yanuka-Golub, Keren

AU - Belkin, Natalia

AU - Weber, Nurit

AU - Mayyani, Meor

AU - Levy, Yehuda

AU - Reznik, Itay J.

AU - Rubin-Blum, Maxim

AU - Rahav, Eyal

AU - Kiro, Yael

N1 - This work was partly supported by the Israeli National Monitoring Program and by the Ministry of Energy (Grant 3‐11519). We thank the Sustainability and Energy Research Initiative (SAERI) grant, the Helen Kimmel Center for Planetary Science grant and the De Botton center for Marine Sciences grant for their funding supporting this study. This study was supported by the Zuckerman Faculty Scholars program, a research grant from the Center for Scientific Excellence, a research grant from the Raymond Lapon Fund, and the Estate of David Levinson, a research grant from Paul and Tina Gardner, and a research grant from the Center for New Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science. We thank H. Michael and I. Halevy for fruitful discussions and suggestions. We also thank D. Gat for her help and advice in bioinformatics analysis. Publisher Copyright: © 2024. The Authors.

PY - 2024/2

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N2 - Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) is a globally important process supplying nutrients and trace elements to the coastal environment, thus playing a pivotal role in sustaining marine primary productivity. Along with nutrients, groundwater also contains allochthonous microbes that are discharged from the terrestrial subsurface into the sea. Currently, little is known about the interactions between groundwater-borne and coastal seawater microbial populations, and groundwater microbes' role upon introduction to coastal seawater populations. Here, we investigated seawater microbial abundance, activity and diversity in a site strongly influenced by SGD. In addition, through laboratory-controlled bottle incubations, we mimicked different mixing scenarios between groundwater and seawater. Our results demonstrate that the addition of 0.1 μm filtered groundwater stimulated heterotrophic activity and increased microbial abundance compared to control coastal seawater, whereas 0.22 μm filtration treatments induced primary productivity and Synechococcus growth. 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed a strong shift from a SAR11-rich community in the control samples to Rhodobacteraceae dominance in the <0.1 μm treatment, in agreement with Rhodobacteraceae enrichment in the SGD field site. These results suggest that microbes delivered by SGD may affect the abundance, activity and diversity of intrinsic microbes in coastal seawater, highlighting the cryptic interplay between groundwater and seawater microbes in coastal environments, which has important implications for carbon cycling.

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JO - Journal of geophysical research: Biogeosciences

JF - Journal of geophysical research: Biogeosciences

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M1 - e2023JG007610

ER -

Allochthonous Groundwater Microorganisms Affect Coastal Seawater Microbial Abundance, Activity and Diversity

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