Insight into diatoms diversity at two European coastal sites (LTER-MC in the Mediterranean Sea and SOMLIT-Astan in the Western English Channel) using a DNA metabarcoding approach

Diatoms are among the most successful marine eukaryotic phytoplankton groups. Their diversity has been investigated in the worlds oceans through expeditions and observations carried out from the equator to the poles. Traditionally, diatom species have been distinguished based on morphological characters of their frustules, but high-throughput sequencing offers new, high-resolution data that can be used to re-examine spatial and/or temporal patterns of diversity. Here we investigated diatoms genetic diversity using metabarcoding (18S V4 rRNA gene) obtained along the years 2011 to 2013 at two coastal time series stations (SOMLIT-Astan and LTER-MareChiara) installed respectively off Roscoff in the Western English Channel and in the Gulf of Naples in the Mediterranean Sea. Diatom species pools detected were different, which fitted with previous observations and with our expectations, since these stations are installed in two contrasted pelagic habitats (permanently-mixed versus stratified in summer). However, this analysis also shows a pool of common ASVs among which some are persistent and dominant in both sites. The observed synchronous variations in relative read abundances of shared ASVs assigned to Chaetoceros socialis, C. tenuissimus, Cyclotella, Mediolabrus comicus and Leptocylindrus aporus at the two geographically distant sites could indicate that internal controls of growth rate and sexual reproduction, rather that external environmental parameters are at work.