Complex interactions and different possible pathways among functional components of the aquatic microbial world in Farasan Archipelago, Southern Red Sea, Saudi Arabia

Hamed A El-Serehy; Hesham Shafik; Hala S Abdallah; Fahad A Al-Misned; Saleh A Al-Farraj

doi:10.1016/j.sjbs.2019.12.012

Complex interactions and different possible pathways among functional components of the aquatic microbial world in Farasan Archipelago, Southern Red Sea, Saudi Arabia

Saudi J Biol Sci. 2020 May;27(5):1412-1417. doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2019.12.012. Epub 2019 Dec 28.

Authors

Hamed A El-Serehy^{1

2}, Hesham Shafik³, Hala S Abdallah^{4

5}, Fahad A Al-Misned¹, Saleh A Al-Farraj¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Zoology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Oceanography, College of Science, Port Said University, Port Said, Egypt.
³ Balaton Limnological Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Tihany, Hungary.
⁴ Department of Computer Science, College of Science and Arts, Campus 1, Khamis Mushait, King Khaled University, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt.

Abstract

This work aims to outline the dynamics of trophic links between the three main microbial components (bacteria, nanoflagellates, and ciliates) of the Farasan Archipelago in order to establish a baseline for future research in this area. The Farasan Archipelago lies along the southwestern coast of the Saudi Arabia, southern Red Sea between 16°20'-17°10'N and 41°30'-42°30'E and had been declared as marine and terrestrial reserve by the year 1996. Three different sites were chosen for this study, with each site visited bimonthly for 18 months from September 2016 to February 2018. Bacteria, nanoflagellates and ciliates were enumerated in order to explore the complex interactions between the main microbial categories in sea waters of the Farasan Archipelago. High abundances were recorded during the present study for bacteria (8.7 × 10⁶ bacteria ml^-1), nanoflagellates (3.7 × 10⁴ TNAN ml^-1) and ciliates (40.4 ciliates ml^-1). The paper discusses the various potential pathways controlling the complex interactions between these microbial groups in this part of the southern Red Sea. It is concluded that a linear trophic chain consisting of bacteria; heterotrophic nanoflagellates; filter feeding ciliates is a major route by which the production of bacteria is transferred to the higher consuming levels, thereby confirming the high importance of t bottom-up control (food supply), alongside top-down control (predation) in regulating bacterial abundances in the Farasan Archipelago. During the present investigation, each nanoflagellate ingested between 11 and 87 bacteria in one hour, while each ciliate consumed between 20 and 185 nanoflagellates every hour. These calculated grazing rates of protistan eukaryotes confirmed the role of heterotrophic nanoflagellates as the main consumers of bacteria, and the role of ciliates as the major control for the heterotrophic nanoflagellate population dynamics, and thus the top predators within the microbial plankton assemblage in the Farasan Archipelago.

Keywords: Heterotrophic bacteria; Interactions; Microbial loop; Protistan grazers.