Major
Microbiology
Minor(s)
Chemistry
Advisor
Beinart, Roxanne, A
Advisor Department
Oceanography, Graduate School of
Date
4-2020
Keywords
Marine Microbiology; Benthic Ecology
Abstract
Marine protists are widely recognized for their role in nutrient cycling in aquatic ecosystems. Benthic habitats are host to ecologically diverse communities of such protists; however, little is understood about the benthic, protistan ecology of Narragansett Bay. In order to understand the distribution and relative abundance of such protists, as well as to survey the general biodiversity of the protistan community in Narragansett Bay, sediment cores were collected from three locations (Providence River Estuary, Wickford Harbor, and Mid-Bay). The alpha and beta diversity of benthic protists from the Stramenopile-Alveolate-Rhizaria (SAR) clade was assessed in the top 2-4 centimeters of sediment from these sites collected throughout spring, summer, and autumn using 18S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing via Illumina MiSeq. Results provide insight into the diversity and relative abundance of protistan taxa in the benthic habitats of Narragansett Bay according to location, depth, and season.