Functional sustainability of nutrient accumulation by periphytic biofilm under temperature fluctuations

ABSTRACT

Temperature can fluctuate widely between different seasons, and this may greatly impact many biological processes. However, little is known about its influence on the functioning of benthic microbial communities. Here we investigated the nutrient accumulation capability of periphytic biofilm under temperature fluctuations (17–35°C). Periphytic biofilm maintained the same nutrient accumulation capacity after experiencing the ‘warming-hot-cooling’ temperature fluctuation under both lab and outdoor conditions as those without temperature disturbance. In response to temperature increase, both community composition and species richness changed greatly and the increase in biodiversity was identified as being the underlying mechanism boosting the sustainable function in nutrient accumulation, indicating zero net effects of community changes. These findings provide insights into the underlying mechanisms of how benthic microbial communities adapt to temperature fluctuations to maintain nutrient accumulation capacity and elucidate that periphytic biofilm plays important roles in influencing nutrient cycling in aquatic ecosystems under temperature changes such as seasonal fluctuations.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Periphytic biofilm
• functional redundancy
• nutrient accumulation
• community structure
• temperature fluctuation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China [grant number 2018YFD0800500], the Science and Technology Major Project of Guangxi Province, China [grant number AA17204078], National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 41825021 and 31772396] and National Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China [grant number BK20181511].