Short-term dynamics of diversity patterns: evidence of continual reassembly within lacustrine small eukaryotes

Summary The short‐term variation in the community structure of freshwater small eukaryotes (0.2–5 μm) was investigated in a mesotrophic lake every 2–3 days over one summer by coupling three molecular methods: 454 amplicon pyrosequencing, qPCR and TSA‐FISH. The pyrosequencing approach unveiled a much more extensive small‐eukaryotic diversity (991 OTUs) than has been described previously. The vast majority of the diversity described was represented by rare OTUs (≤ 0.01% of reads) belonging primarily to Cryptomycota, Dikarya and photosynthetic organisms, which were never detected as abundant in any of the samples. The small eukaryote community was characterized by a continual and important reassembly. These rearrangements involved the 20 ‘core taxa’ (≥ 1% of reads), and, were essentially due to a handful of OTUs that were detected in intermediate abundance (0.01–1% of reads) and sporadically in dominant taxa. Putative bacterivorous (Ciliophora and Cercozoa) as well as parasitic and saprotrophic taxa (Perkinsozoa and Cryptomycota) were involved in these changes of diversity. A putative infection of microalgae by a lacustrine perkinsozoan was also reported for the first time in this study. Open questions regarding both the patterns that govern the rapid small eukaryote reassemblies and the possible biogeography of these organisms arise from this study.