Fatores reguladores do bacterioplâncton: implicações na estrutura e nas interações tróficas planctônicas

Abstract

Bacterioplankton plays an important role on energy flux and biogeochemistry cycles in aquatic systems. Several factors affect the bacterioplankton in aquatic systems, such as temperature, nutrients, organic matter, grazing and macrophytes. Although bacterioplankton has been the focus of many studies since the advents of microbial loop concept, there is still a lot to answer about bacteria community ecology. The aim is to investigate drive factors of bacterioplankton and implications for the plankton structure and trophic interactions in tropical, subtropical and temperate waters. This present study has three specific goals: (1) to assess the relationship between bacterioplankton and phytoplankton in tropical systems and compare with the well-studied temperate systems (2) to describe the dynamics of bacterioplankton, its relationship with phytoplankton and abiotic factors in two shallow temperate lakes characterized by fluctuation in coverage macrophytes and (3) to study microbial trophic structure and driver factors of microbial food web along latitudinal gradient. Relationship between bacterioplankton and phytoplankton was weak in Brazilian systems depending on the type of aquatic sytems and its hydrological characterizes temperature and trophic status. Macrophytes can influence the dynamics of bacteria by inhibiting the phytoplankton community or directly by the excretion of organic carbon. In general, local factors such as availability of organic carbon, nutrients and predators influence microbial trophic structure instead of gradient latitudinal. This work supplied data and discussion which will contribute to the literature about ecology of bacterioplankton in tropical and temperate systems. Furthermore, the results suggest that temperature, nutrients and characteristics of each system (coverage of acrophytes, grazing, hydrological regime) drive bacterial community in aquatic systems, regardless of climate region.