PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Christian Wurzbacher AU - Katrin Attermeyer AU - Marie Therese Kettner AU - Clara Flintrop AU - Norman Warthmann AU - Sabine Hilt AU - Hans-Peter Grossart AU - Michael T. Monaghan TI - Universal metabarcoding of pico- to mesoplankton reveals seasonal dynamics and a bacterial bloom AID - 10.1101/058628 DP - 2016 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 058628 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/06/13/058628.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/06/13/058628.full AB - Most studies of biodiversity focus on either macroscopic or microbial communities, with little or no simultaneous study of eukaryotes and prokaryotes. We tested whether a universal metabarcoding approach could be used to study the total diversity and temporal dynamics of aquatic pico- to mesoplankton communities in a shallow temperate lake. The approach revealed significant changes in the relative abundance of eukaryotic and prokaryotic plankton communities over a period of three months. These patterns, based on sequencing reads, fit with counts using traditional methods. We also witnessed the bloom of a conditionally rare bacterial taxon belonging to Arcicella, a genus that has been largely overlooked in freshwaters. Our data demonstrate the potential of universal metabarcoding as a complement to traditional studies of plankton communities, and for long-term monitoring across a broad range of organisms.