The variability and potential for many different relationships in the plankton community might be an indicator of resilience in the system. Furthermore, our results suggest that zooplankton predators might favour specific prey during certain time periods but seem to be quite opportunistic otherwise throughout the year. Main consumers were copepods, ciliates, and dinoflagellates, of which the latter were most abundant. Despite a stable background community surviving strong fluctuations, small and abrupt changes, such as pronounced blooms and random appearance of autotrophs, cause seasons to be quite different in an inter-year comparison. Our data set depicted the strong seasonality typically found for temperate waters. By use of network analysis, we also tried to identify predator–prey dynamics. Using an integrative approach, we investigated water samples taken at Helgoland Roads by metabarcoding to describe seasonal succession patterns of the whole plankton community. While both approaches can give us a good understanding of the ecosystem and its dynamics, drawbacks in identification and a limited coverage of the ecosystem have left open questions on the generality of previous results. Additionally, laboratory experiments have described consumers ranging from generalists to selective grazers.
Various field studies on plankton dynamics have broadened our understanding of seasonal succession patterns. Our observations suggest the presence of different eukaryotic microbial communities separated by complex hydrological conditions in the coastal German Bight. The differences between Helgoland and the coastal stations were correlated with the different hydrological regimes and associated nutrient contents. Lagrangian particle tracking applied to the model results, showed limited connectivity between Helgoland and the coastal stations in 2016. Furthermore, differences were observed in the dinoflagellate and diatom communities between the three stations. Helgoland was dominated by dinoflagellates, whereas the coastal stations had more diverse communities. Our results showed that the communities were different at the three stations. In addition, an oceanographical model was used to check for potential hydrological connectivity between the stations during the sampling period.
The eukaryotic microbial community in the German Bight was analysed at Helgoland Roads and two coastal stations (Cuxhaven and Wilhelmshaven) between March and October 2016 using metabarcoding. Here, we consider the spatial dynamics of the eukaryotic microbes as an indicator of the representativeness of the Helgoland Roads site for the coastal German Bight, which is located in the North Sea.
#Predator 212 iguard series
In the German Bight, the Helgoland Roads time series is such a long-term series. Long-term time series are an important tool for monitoring changes in ecological communities, but time series from a single location may not be representative of regional dynamics. Monitoring changes in eukaryotic microbial communities is critical for understanding ecosystem dynamics, trophic interactions and the impacts of climate change.