metabarcoding
Metabarcoding is a high-throughput DNA sequencing approach that identifies the species composition of entire ecological communities from a single environmental sample. For plant scientists, this technique enables rapid, comprehensive surveys of plant diversity in soil, water, or mixed tissue samples without the need to isolate individual organisms. It is particularly valuable for studying plant-associated microbiomes, seed banks, pollen assemblages, and biodiversity in complex ecosystems.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-05-01
Scientists studying harmful algal blooms in Chilean Patagonia discovered that each bloom type hosts a distinctly different community of bacteria and microorganisms, and identified specific microbial 'keystone' species that may drive or sustain toxic blooms.
The two bloom types (Heterosigma akashiwo and Alexandrium catenella) harbored significantly different microbial communities in both richness and taxonomic structure.
Proteobacteria, Bacteroidota, and Cyanobacteria dominated the bacterial communities across both bloom types and both water-size fractions sampled (1 µm and 0.2 µm filters).
Blastopirellula bacteria and Dino-Group-I-Clade-1 dinoflagellates were identified as keystone taxa specifically in the Alexandrium catenella bloom, suggesting outsized roles in structuring that community.