the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Microbial plankton occurrence database in the North American Arctic region: synthesis of recent diversity of potentially toxic and harmful algae
Abstract. The Arctic Ocean is currently undergoing significant transformations due to climate change, leading to profound changes in its microbial planktonic communities. These communities consist of a wide range of organisms, including photoautotrophic prokaryotes and eukaryotes, as well as heterotrophic, phagotrophic, and mixotrophic protistan species. Here, for simplicity, we refer to these single-celled species as phytoplankton. Within this diversity, potentially toxic and/or harmful algal species (hereafter abbreviated as “HA”) are of particular concern. These organisms have the potential to spread into Arctic waters, posing threats to both human and ecosystem health. Despite their importance, the spatial and temporal distribution of phytoplankton communities, including HA species, in the North American Arctic, remains poorly understood. To address this gap, we compiled and synthesized the largest possible body of data from different databases, individual published and unpublished datasets, and partitioned it into nine regions based on the Large Marine Ecosystem classification. Our dataset contains 385 800 individual georeferenced data points and 18 268 unique sampling events, revealing greater diversity than previously thought, with 1445 unique taxa. Heterokontophyta (which notably included diatoms) and Dinoflagellata were the most dominant phyla. Our results indicate distinct spatial patterns of diversity, with the highest diversity observed in Atlantic-influenced regions of the North American Arctic. For most of the HA species recorded in our database, no evidence was found for an increase in the northernmost latitude where HA species are observed over the years, meaning that there is no substantial spread of HA species into the North American part of the Arctic. Our study challenges the traditional view of the Arctic as being unsuitable for toxin-producing and harmful algae and highlights the importance of extensive and long-term sampling efforts to understand the region’s biodiversity. Overall, our findings provide new insights into the spatial patterns and biodiversity of phytoplankton and other protists in the North American Arctic and have implications for understanding the ecological functioning and response of this region to ongoing climate change.
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RC1: 'Comment on essd-2024-19', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 Apr 2024
Abstract:: the definition of phytoplankton is no correct. Phytoplankton cannot include strict heterotrophs and phagotrophs;
Introducton
Line 33: subjected is not the right word. This implies harm. The Arctic has been the focus of ..
Line 46. the reference is over a decade old. chang past decade to recent decades..
Line 85. Agreed quantitative data are limited, but I do not see how the review here addresses this concern.
figure 1, I am not sure how the LMEs were delineated. I would question the inclusion of Bering Sea areas as these are not the Arctic per se. the the clear break would be Bering Strait where the water is entrained into the Arctic.
Line 228: the June to September is consistent with accessibility by ships to the Arctic, not seasonal dyanamics, which would correspond to ice free or light available periods. (e.g.April to october).
Line 232, Given the paucity of depth data and information it is not possible to make general statements. This is in essence a report of species with little or no possibility of. ecological interpretation .
LIne 249; Given this is a catalog why are "molecular" only records not included in this reveiw?
Line 267, This is the crux of why the richness and diversity comparisons between regions is missleading at best. The regions were not sampled using the same techniques. The CPR is restricted to Large cells in surface waters.
Line 273. No one has ever denied that Synechococcus occurs in the Bering Sea, or even Atlantic water entering the Arctic. What was stated and obvious in previous publications is that these do not persist once in the Arctic Basin. The coastal reports are all of Freshwater to maybe brackish (sal of 5) species of cyanos. I would not call the data given her a diverse range of cyanobacteria.
LIne 282 and elsewhere, The term 'commonly accepted" is not useful . With, It has been proposed that...
Line 287. delete "conventional"
Figure 2, Given the non-comparative data set. Why present a Choao2 diversity index. Or why only give Chao2?
Figure 3 Plot all but e Aleutian Islands and Labrador -Newfoundland curves as a single figure.
this puts the data from the 7 Arctic areas on the same scale and would make comparisons in the context of sampling effort and show how total species numbers varied between regions. none are close to flattening out except the L-N plot, which is a totally biased data setl, as stated in line 341.
Line 347, Is there an a priori reason that productivity and diversity should be correlated in the sea. After all HA blooms are highly productive and fix carbon at high rates, but are not diverse species assemblages.
Line 348. As I cannot seem to access the data, I cannot verify, but I think, the nearness to shore is not a reason for high diversity in the Beafort. It could be the stable layers in the beaufort gyre providing multiple niches, More riverine flow from the MacKensie or a host of other reasons.
Line 367-383. These are circular arguments.
Line 413 ... Using an entire paragraph on a single occurrence wit a reference to a dead internet link is not justifiable. A more rational explanation is that it was a misidentification or a carryover contamination from a phytoplankton net. One sentence is all that is needed.
Line 447 paragraph. If the reports of HA events is a report of economic or health effects and none are reported in the Arctic the system is fine. Another criteria could be used in arctic to encourage monitoring .
Figure 5A: I miss the point of the polynomial regression fitting.
Fig 5 b teh colors on the graph do not agree with the colors for Heterosigma and Karenia given in the legend. The distribution of r looks lie a result of baseline misidentification or persistent contamination.
Table 2. the Dinoflagellates phylum should be showen next to Alexandrium catenella
Suggest Writing out the subphylum name for Diatoms next to Chaetoceros concavicornis. Also suggest Aureococcus needs as much or more explanation than Pyro.. Was this a missidentification as well?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-19-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on essd-2024-19', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Apr 2024
apologies for the spelling in my post, The conditions were not ideal yesterday
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-19-RC2 -
RC3: 'Comment on essd-2024-19', Anonymous Referee #2, 04 Jun 2024
The authors did an excellent job combining the data from different archives and making it readily usable by the community. I appreciate they published their R code, which is clear, transparent, and reproducible (except that I don’t have AlgaeBase API). I did a few manual checks of their data in the different databases and could successfully find the respective datasets.
However, the authors can improve some sections of their manuscript, which will help the community to understand the value of this database better.
My main critique is that the authors use the term “phytoplankton” “for simplicity” (L. 13/14). Phytoplankton is a defined term (see ESA data ontologies: https://data.esa.int/esado/en/) and, therefore, misused in this study's context. Making this shortcut will not help users understand the content of this database or how to use it correctly. I recommend the authors summarize their data based on the higher taxonomic ranks, such as the kingdom level (Chromista, Cyanobacteriota, Eubacteria, Protozoa, Plantae, and unassigned Eukaryota).
Unassigned Eukaryota includes several entries of ‘Medusa,’ which is neither microbial plankton nor phytoplankton. I would recommend removing these entries from further analysis.
Specific comments on the data set publication:
Abstract
L.21 The diversity presented is not unexpected, particularly in pan-Arctic genomic surveys (e.g., Ibarbalz et al. 2023 https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2022.00060 reporting >3000 OTUs). The novelty of this dataset is certainly the richness of observational taxonomic counts.
L.26 I think it’s more widely accepted that HA occurs in the Arctic, including a few HAB events.
Introduction
L.39-54 This paragraph is irrelevant in the context of the presented data
L.59/60 As suggested above, I recommend removing the term “phytoplankton.” The authors did not do any trophic assignment of species, which allowed them to discuss the different trophic groups in more detail.
L.79/80 Nöthing et al. do not introduce the concept of Atlantification. Please explain what you mean by this term.
L.98 Please explain what you mean by “the largest database of its kind” or remove it.
Data and Methods
For transparency, including the number of hits of the respective keyword searches in OBPS, PANGAEA, and GBIF would have been interesting.
L.207-209 Please provide the version of the packages used.
Results & Discussion
L.228/229 does not necessarily coincide with the seasonal dynamics but with accessibility to sampling sites due to ice cover.
L.357-269 A Figure would have been helpful to see the different abundances of taxa between regions
L273, I suggest making differences on the genus level. How can you be sure that there are 27 distinct taxa? For example, Aphanothece spp. and Aphanothece clathrate could essentially be the same species.
L.278/279 I don’t think cyanobacteria's presence is generally underestimated. Several studies on bacterial abundances in the Arctic, see, e.g., Ortega-Retuerta 2012 (https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-3679-2012), where bacteria contributed >80% to the local PP.
L.282-284 Studies have also shown that diversity patterns are bimodal (Chaudhary et al. 2016; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2016.06.001) and can vary between Longhurst provinces (Hörstmann et al. 2021; https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.15832).
L.291-332, please provide the number of samples per LME you used for these analyses.
L.293-296 and 340-343. Did you also consider the diversity of methods used per region? I can imagine it also increases if areas are studied using multiple techniques, i.e., different size classes, etc.
L.378-380 see also Wassmann et al. 2015 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2015.06.011) on Panarctic species advection
L.388/389 and, significantly, that it could potentially stimulate cyst germination (see Anderson et al. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2107387118)
L.391 One important aspect of HABs is also associated with massive economic losses through fish kills.
L.469-502 Appreciate this analysis that contextualizes sampling bias vs. ecological signals.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-19-RC3
Data sets
Microbial plankton occurrence database in the North American Arctic region: synthesis of recent diversity of potentially toxic and harmful algae – Code and Dataset N. Schiffrine et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10498858
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