Patterns and Drivers of Diatom Diversity and Biogeography in the North Pacific
- 1Hokkaido University
Abstract
Marine diatoms contribute to about 20% of global primary production. We present the first basin-scale, multiyear assessment of diatom communities in the North Pacific, combining taxonomically high-resolution RuBisCO large subunit gene (rbcL) metabarcoding with concurrent environmental measurements. Using a nine-year time series of daily samples resolved at the species level via ~500 bp rbcL fragments, we performed multivariate analyses across biogeographic provinces, identifying significant correlations between community structure and environmental drivers such as temperature and macronutrient availability. We report the prevalence of a previously overlooked centric diatom species in the North Pacific, Eunotogramma lunatum, which appears to be near-dominant even in subarctic high-nitrate, low-chlorophyll waters where pennate diatoms are typically favored. These results demonstrate the power of rbcL for large-scale ocean monitoring and provide a critical baseline for future studies of diatom population dynamics, climate change impacts, and ecosystem resilience in a key marine region.
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BibTeX
@misc{barral2026patterns,
title = {{Patterns and Drivers of Diatom Diversity and Biogeography in the North Pacific}},
author = {A. Barral and K. Suzuki and Y. Kikuchi and S.-i. Nakaoka and S. Takao and S. Nakaoka},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.30.746603},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.30.746603v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Patterns and Drivers of Diatom Diversity and Biogeography in the North Pacific
AU - A. Barral
AU - K. Suzuki
AU - Y. Kikuchi
AU - S.-i. Nakaoka
AU - S. Takao
AU - S. Nakaoka
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/30
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.30.746603
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.30.746603v1
AB - Marine diatoms contribute to about 20% of global primary production. We present the first basin-scale, multiyear assessment of diatom communities in the North Pacific, combining taxonomically high-resolution RuBisCO large subunit gene (rbcL) metabarcoding with concurrent environmental measurements. Using a nine-year time series of daily samples resolved at the species level via ~500 bp rbcL fragments, we performed multivariate analyses across biogeographic provinces, identifying significant correlations between community structure and environmental drivers such as temperature and macronutrient availability. We report the prevalence of a previously overlooked centric diatom species in the North Pacific, Eunotogramma lunatum, which appears to be near-dominant even in subarctic high-nitrate, low-chlorophyll waters where pennate diatoms are typically favored. These results demonstrate the power of rbcL for large-scale ocean monitoring and provide a critical baseline for future studies of diatom population dynamics, climate change impacts, and ecosystem resilience in a key marine region.
ER -