Phosphate addition has minimal short-term effects on bacterioplankton community structure of the p-starved Eastern Mediterranean

Abstract

The effect of the addition of a limiting nutrient to the composition and structure of bacterial communities in oligotrophic environments remains an interesting question. We conducted a mesocosm experiment to study short-term effects of phosphorus addition on bacterioplankton communities in the Eastern Mediterranean, which is a phosphorus-starved ecosystem. Inorganic phosphorus was added to 10 m deep pelagic water which was transported from offshore Crete, Greece, to mesocosms to yield a final concentration of 100 nM. Using 454 16S amplicon sequencing, we found that phosphorus addition during the first 72 h of the experiment had a minimal effect on bacterioplankton community composition and structure, affecting mostly the abundance of the 'non-unique' members of the community. © Inter-Research 2014.