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Updated: Aug 15, 2026
09:39
Cultivation of the Marine Pelagic Tunicate Dolioletta gegenbauri (Uljanin 1884) for Experimental Studies
Published on: August 9, 2019
Contrasting growth phase-dependent microbiota dynamics between dinoflagellates and diatoms
Joo-Hwan Kim1, Jin Ho Kim2, Zhun Li3
1Department of Life Science, Hanyang University, Seoul, 04763, Republic of Korea.
Harmful Algae
|August 13, 2026
Summary
Dinoflagellate bacteria communities change with growth phases, unlike diatoms whose bacteria are linked to strain identity. This indicates dinoflagellates have a more structured, host-filtered microbiota.
Area of Science:
- Marine microbiology
- Phytoplankton ecology
- Harmful algal blooms
Background:
- Bacteria associated with phytoplankton influence host physiology and bloom dynamics.
- Understanding how phytoplankton microbiota changes across host growth phases is crucial but poorly understood.
- Differences in microbiota dynamics between dinoflagellates and diatoms remain unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the microbial community structure of dinoflagellates and diatoms across different growth phases.
- To compare the temporal dynamics of microbiota between dinoflagellates and diatoms.
- To determine the factors driving microbiota composition, such as host species, strain identity, and growth phase.
Main Methods:
- Tracking microbiota composition of three harmful algal bloom (HAB)-forming dinoflagellates and three diatoms.
- Sampling two strains per species at three distinct growth phases (P1, P2, P3).
- Utilizing PERMANOVA and Mantel tests to analyze microbiota differentiation and correlations with host phylogeny and strain identity.
Main Results:
- Microbiota composition was significantly differentiated by host species.
- Dinoflagellate microbiota restructured with each growth phase, with G. catenatum showing high growth phase variation.
- Diatom microbiota was strongly linked to intraspecific strain identity, with limited phase-dependent shifts.
- Dinoflagellates harbored larger core microbiota, higher centrality of core taxa, and lower normalized stochasticity ratios (NST) than diatoms.
- Microbiota dissimilarity strongly correlated with host phylogenetic distance, showing congruence between microbiota and host phylogeny.
Conclusions:
- Dinoflagellates maintain a more deterministic and growth phase-linked microbiota compared to diatoms.
- Host filtering plays a significant role in shaping dinoflagellate-associated bacterial communities.
- These findings highlight distinct microbial association strategies between major phytoplankton groups.
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