Metabarcoding and metabolomics offer complementarity in deciphering marine eukaryotic biofouling community shifts

Abstract

Metabarcoding and metabolomics were used to explore the taxonomic composition and functional diversity of eukaryotic biofouling communities on plates with antifouling paints at two French coastal sites: Lorient (North Eastern Atlantic Ocean; temperate and eutrophic) and Toulon (North-Western Mediterranean Sea; mesotrophic but highly contaminated). Four distinct coatings were tested at each site and season for one month. Metabarcoding showed biocidal coatings had less impact on eukaryotic assemblages compared to spatial and temporal effects. Ciliophora, Chlorophyceae or Cnidaria (mainly hydrozoans) were abundant at Lorient, whereas Arthropoda (especially crustaceans), Nematoda, and Ochrophyta dominated less diversified assemblages at Toulon. Seasonal shifts were observed at Lorient, but not Toulon. Metabolomics also showed clear site discrimination, but these were associated with a coating and not season dependent clustering. The meta-omics analysis enabled identifications of some associative patterns between metabolomic profiles and specific taxa, in particular those colonizing the plates with biocidal coatings at Lorient.

Keywords:

• macrofouling
• eukaryotes
• marine biofilms
• 18S rRNA gene
• physico-chemical
• parameters
• artificial surfaces

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank S. Lafond for her help in paint formulation, surface painting and contact angle measurements and Dr A. Ortalo-Magné (MAPIEM, UTLN) for helpful discussions and sample treatment for the metabolomics analysis. This work was funded by a grant from the French EC2CO program ANTECOL.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.