Scientific paper

Understanding Biofilm Formation in Ecotoxicological Assays With Natural and Anthropogenic Particulates

Gorokhova, E; Motiei, A; El-Shehawy, R
2021 | Front. Microbiol. | 12
actinobacteria , bacteria , bacterial assemblages on microplastic , balos , daphnia , daphnia-magna , diverse , ecotoxicological testing , microbiome , nov. , particle aggregation , plastic debris , predation , resistance , sediments , size distribution , suspended clay , zooplankton
Fossil-made polymers harbor unique bacterial assemblages, and concerns have been raised that ingested microplastic may affect the consumer gut microbiota and spread pathogens in animal populations. We hypothesized that in an ecotoxicity assay with a mixture of polystyrene (PS) and clay: (1) microbiome of the test animals inoculates the system with bacteria; (2) relative contribution of PS and the total amount of suspended solids (SS) select for specific bacterial communities; and (3) particle aggregation is affected by biofilm community composition, with concomitant effects on the animal survival. Mixtures of PS and clay at different concentrations of SS (10, 100, and 1000 mg/L) with a varying microplastics contribution (%PS; 0-80%) were incubated with Daphnia magna, whose microbiome served as an inoculum for the biofilms during the exposure. After 4-days of exposure, we examined the biofilm communities by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, particle size distribution, and animal survival. The biofilm communities were significantly different from the Daphnia microbiota used to inoculate the system, with an overrepresentation of predatory, rare, and potentially pathogenic taxa in the biofilms. The biofilm diversity was stimulated by %PS and decreased by predatory bacteria. Particle aggregate size and the biofilm composition were the primary drivers of animal survival, with small particles and predatory bacteria associated with a higher death rate. Thus, in effect studies with solid waste materials, ecological interactions in the biofilm can affect particle aggregation and support potentially harmful microorganisms with concomitant effects on the test animals.
Scientific paper

Competitive interactions as a mechanism for chemical diversity maintenance in Nodularia spumigena

Lage, S; Mazur-Marzec, H; Gorokhova, E
2021 | Sci Rep | 11 (1)
allelopathy , baltic sea cyanobacteria , biological role , bloom , cylindrospermopsis-raciborskii , evolution , growth , limited microcystis-aeruginosa , nonribosomal peptides , phytoplankton
Nodularia spumigena is a bloom-forming diazotrophic cyanobacterium inhabiting brackish waters worldwide. This species produces non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs), including the hepatotoxin nodularin, often referred to as cyanotoxin. Several known classes of NRPs have various biological activities, although their modes of action are poorly understood. In the Baltic N. spumigena, there is a high NRP chemodiversity among strains, allowing their grouping in specific chemotypes and subgroups. Therefore, it is relevant to ask whether the NRP production is affected by intraspecific interactions between the co-existing strains. Using a novel approach that combines culture technique and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry for the NRP analysis, we examined N. spumigena strains under mono- and co-culture conditions. The test strains were selected to represent N. spumigena belonging to the same or different chemotype subgroups. In this setup, we observed physiological and metabolic responses in the test strains grown without cell contact. The changes in NRP levels to co-culture conditions were conserved within a chemotype subgroup but different between the subgroups. Our results suggest that intraspecific interactions may promote a chemical diversity in N. spumigena population, with higher NRP production compared to a single-strain population. Studying allelochemical signalling in this cyanobacterium is crucial for understanding toxicity mechanisms and plankton community interactions in the Baltic Sea and other aquatic systems experiencing regular blooms.
Scientific paper

Ecotoxicological assessment of suspended solids: The importance of biofilm and particle aggregation

Motiei, A; Ogonowski, M; Reichelt, S; Gorokhova, E
2021 | Environ. Pollut. | 280
aggregation , biofilm , clay , daphnia-magna , flocculation , fresh , microplastics , particle hazardous effects , pls-sem , polystyrene , size distribution , water quality , wettability
Assessment of microplastic impacts in biota is challenging due to the complex behavior of the test particles and their interactions with other particulates, including microorganisms, in the environment. To disentangle responses to microplastic exposure from those to other suspended solids, both micro plastic and natural particles must be present in the test system. We evaluated how microplastic, non plastic particles, and biofilms interacted in their effects on survivorship using acute toxicity assay with Daphnia magna. The animals were exposed to microplastic and kaolin at different concentrations of suspended solids (SS; 10, 100, and 1000 mg/L) with a varying microplastic contribution (%MP; 0e80%) and biofilm (presence/absence) associated with the solids. Also, we examined how these exposure parameters (SS, %MP, and Biofilm) affected aggregate formation that was analyzed using particle size distribution data. Under the exposure conditions, Daphnia mortality was primarily driven by SS concentration but ameliorated by both microplastic and biofilm. The ameliorating effects were related to increased particle aggregation in the presence of biofilm and high %MP. In addition, a weak yet significant positive effect of the biofilm on the survivorship was observed, presumably, due to microbial food supply to the daphniids in the exposure system; the bacteria were utilized at the absence of other food. Therefore, the effects of both natural and anthropogenic particulates depend on the particle behavior and aggregation in the water governed by microbial communities and physicochemical properties of the particles, which must be taken into account in the hazard assessment of plastic litter. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Scientific paper

How Copepods Can Eat Toxins Without Getting Sick: Gut Bacteria Help Zooplankton to Feed in Cyanobacteria Blooms

Gorokhova, E; El-Shehawy, R; Lehtiniemi, M; Garbaras, A
2021 | Front. Microbiol. | 11
baltic sea , biodegradation , community structure , copepods , daphnia , degradation , diversity , enzymatic pathway , grazing , growth , hepatotoxins , microcystin , microcystin-lr , mlra gene , nodularia-spumigena , nodularin , rna
Toxin-producing cyanobacteria can be harmful to aquatic biota, although some grazers utilize them with often beneficial effects on their growth and reproduction. It is commonly assumed that gut microbiota facilitates host adaptation to the diet; however, the evidence for adaptation mechanisms is scarce. Here, we investigated the abundance of mlrA genes in the gut of the Baltic copepods Acartia bifilosa and Eurytemora affinis during cyanobacteria bloom season (August) and outside it (February). The mlrA genes are unique to microcystin and nodularin degraders, thus indicating the capacity to break down these toxins by the microbiota. The mlrA genes were expressed in the copepod gut year-round, being >10-fold higher in the summer than in the winter populations. Moreover, they were significantly more abundant in Eurytemora than Acartia. To understand the ecological implications of this variability, we conducted feeding experiments using summer- and winter-collected copepods to examine if/how the mlrA abundance in the microbiota affect: (1) uptake of toxic Nodularia spumigena, (2) uptake of a non-toxic algal food offered in mixtures with N. spumigena, and (3) concomitant growth potential in the copepods. The findings provide empirical evidence that the occurrence of mlrA genes in the copepod microbiome facilitates nutrient uptake and growth when feeding on phytoplankton mixtures containing nodularin-producing cyanobacteria; thus, providing an adaptation mechanism to the cyanobacteria blooms.
Scientific paper

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Have Adverse Effects on Benthic Communities in the Baltic Sea: Implications for Environmental Status Assessment

Raymond, C; Gorokhova, E; Karlson, AML
2021 | Front. Environ. Sci. | 9
biodiversity , contaminants , environmental quality , hazardous substances , key-species , seafloor integrity , sediment , zoobenthos
Changes in benthic macrofaunal communities are indicative of environmental stressors, including eutrophication and hypoxia. However, some species are sensitive not only to hypoxia but also to various environmental contaminants. We tested which of the environmental predictors (sediment organic carbon, sediment concentrations of metals and polyaromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs], bottom water oxygen, salinity, temperature, and surface chlorophyll-a concentration) that best explained the following response variables: (1) macrofauna community composition, (2) abundance of a benthic sentinel species, the amphipod Monoporeia affinis; and (3) the Benthic Quality Index (BQI). All data originated from 29 reference monitoring stations in the Baltic Sea and the statistical tests included both uni- and multivariate analyses. The community composition and BQI were best explained by the same combination of salinity, depth, temperature and PAH concentrations. The abundance of M. affinis, which is sensitive to hypoxia and chemical exposure, was best explained by PAHs as a single predictor. Our findings suggest that benthic communities in the Baltic Sea are influenced by anthropogenic contaminants, which should be taken into account when benthos is used for eutrophication status assessment.
Scientific paper

Heterogeneous ice nucleation ability of aerosol particles generated from Arctic sea surface microlayer and surface seawater samples at cirrus temperatures

Wagner, R; Ickes, L; Bertram, AK; Els, N; Gorokhova, E; Mohler, O; Murray, BJ; Umo, NS; Salter, ME
2021 | Atmos. Chem. Phys. | 21 (18) (13903-13930)
cloud , coastal , fjord , glassy aerosols , kongsfjorden , nuclei , ocean , phase , spray aerosol , water-uptake
Sea spray aerosol particles are a recognised type of ice-nucleating particles under mixed-phase cloud conditions. Entities that are responsible for the heterogeneous ice nucleation ability include intact or fragmented cells of marine microorganisms as well as organic matter released by cell exudation. Only a small fraction of sea spray aerosol is transported to the upper troposphere, but there are indications from mass-spectrometric analyses of the residuals of sublimated cirrus particles that sea salt could also contribute to heterogeneous ice nucleation under cirrus conditions. Experimental studies on the heterogeneous ice nucleation ability of sea spray aerosol particles and their proxies at temperatures below 235K are still scarce. In our article, we summarise previous measurements and present a new set of ice nucleation experiments at cirrus temperatures with particles generated from sea surface microlayer and surface seawater samples collected in three different regions of the Arctic and from a laboratory-grown diatom culture (Skeletonema marinoi). The particles were suspended in the Aerosol Interaction and Dynamics in the Atmosphere (AIDA) cloud chamber and ice formation was induced by expansion cooling. We confirmed that under cirrus conditions, apart from the ice-nucleating entities mentioned above, also crystalline inorganic salt constituents can contribute to heterogeneous ice formation. This takes place at temperatures below 220 K, where we observed in all experiments a strong immersion freezing mode due to the only partially deliquesced inorganic salts. The inferred ice nucleation active surface site densities for this nucleation mode reached a maximum of about 5 x 10(10) m(-2) at an ice saturation ratio of 1.3. Much smaller densities in the range of 10(8)-10(9) m(-2) were observed at temperatures between 220 and 235 K, where the inorganic salts fully deliquesced and only the organic matter and/or algal cells and cell debris could contribute to heterogeneous ice formation. These values are 2 orders of magnitude smaller than those previously reported for particles generated from microlayer suspensions collected in temperate and subtropical zones. While this difference might simply underline the strong variability of the number of ice-nucleating entities in the sea surface microlayer across different geographical regions, we also discuss how instrumental parameters like the aerosolisation method and the ice nucleation measurement technique might affect the comparability of the results amongst different studies.
Scientific paper

Association between Aquatic Micropollutant Dissipation and River Sediment Bacterial Communities

Coll, C.; Bier, R.; Li, Z.; Langenheder, S.; Gorokhova, E.; Sobek, A.
2020 | Environ. Sci. Technol. | 54 (22) (14380-14392)
Scientific paper

Influence of Arctic Microlayers and Algal Cultures on Sea Spray Hygroscopicity and the Possible Implications for Mixed‐Phase Clouds

Sigurd Christiansen; Luisa Ickes; Ines Bulatovic; Caroline Leck; Benjamin J Murray; Allan K Bertram; Robert Wagner; Elena Gorokhova; Matthew E Salter; Annica ML Ekman; Merete Bilde
2020 | J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos. | 125
Scientific paper

The ice-nucleating activity of Arctic sea surface microlayer samples and marine algal cultures

Luisa Ickes; Grace CE Porter; Robert Wagner; Michael P Adams; Sascha Bierbauer; Allan K Bertram; Merete Bilde; Sigurd Christiansen; Annica ML Ekman; Elena Gorokhova; Kristina Höhler; Alexei A Kiselev; Caroline Leck; Ottmar Möhler; Benjamin J Murray; Thea Schiebel; Romy Ullrich; Matthew E Salter
2020 | Atmos. Chem. Phys. | 20
Scientific paper

DNA epigenetic marks are linked to embryo aberrations in amphipods

Gorokhova, E; Martella, G; Motwani, HN; Tretyakova, N; Sundelin, B; Motwani, HV
2020 | Sci Rep | 10:665
Scientific paper

Sea Spray Aerosol Formation: Laboratory Results on the Role of Air Entrainment, Water Temperature, and Phytoplankton Biomass

Sigurd Christiansen; Matthew E Salter; Elena Gorokhova; Quynh T Nguyen; Merete Bilde
2019 | Environ. Sci. Technol. | 53
Scientific paper

Using Compound-Specific and Bulk Stable Isotope Analysis for Trophic Positioning of Bivalves in Contaminated Baltic Sea Sediments

Ek, C.; Holmstrand, H.; Mustajärvi, L.; Garbaras, A.; Barisevičiu̅te, R.; Šapolaite, J.; Sobek, A.; Gorokhova, E.; Karlson, A.
2018 | Environ. Sci. Technol. | 42 (4861-4868)

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