Microbial Bioactives
Microbial Bioactives | Online ISSN 2209-2161
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Volume 4 Number 1 2021
REVIEWS (Open Access)
Microzooplankton and Hypersaline Protists Under Global Change: Functional Responses and Ecological Implications in Marine Microbial Systems
V Vasanthabharathi 1 *, S Jayalakshmi 1
Microbial Bioactives 4 (1) 1-8 https://doi.org/10.25163/microbbioacts.4110715
Submitted: 18 October 2021 Revised: 10 December 2021 Accepted: 19 December 2021 Published: 21 December 2021
Abstract
Microzooplankton (MZP) and hypersaline protists constitute a substantial fraction of marine eukaryotic diversity and play indispensable roles in regulating food-web dynamics, nutrient recycling, and the global carbon cycle. As oceans experience rapid anthropogenic change, these organisms are increasingly exposed to interacting environmental hazards, including ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, and coastal eutrophication. This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesizes experimental, observational, and molecular evidence to evaluate how microzooplankton and hypersaline protists respond to these stressors across conventional marine systems and extreme hypersaline environments. Quantitative synthesis reveals strong consensus that warming enhances growth and grazing rates of many heterotrophic and mixotrophic protists, with implications for trophic coupling and carbon transfer, particularly in previously temperature-limited regions. In contrast, ocean acidification shows largely neutral effects on non-calcifying taxa, while calcifying protists exhibit reduced growth and shell formation. Deoxygenation emerges as a comparatively higher-risk stressor, driving diversity loss and functional shifts among taxa occupying narrow oxygen niches. Eutrophication consistently weakens trophic coupling, favoring mixotrophic strategies and species replacement during bloom conditions. In hypersaline systems, protists persist under extreme salinity and anoxia through specialized osmoadaptive strategies, including compatible solute accumulation and acidic, salt-tolerant proteomes. Advances in metagenomics and single-cell genomics reveal extensive cryptic diversity within these environments, highlighting the limitations of taxonomy alone for predicting ecological responses. Collectively, this synthesis demonstrates that functional traits and environmental context are stronger predictors of response than taxonomic identity. Understanding these dynamics is essential for forecasting microbial contributions to ecosystem resilience and biogeochemical cycling in an increasingly stratified and variable ocean.
Keywords: Microzooplankton, Hypersaline protists, Global change, Ocean warming, Acidification, Deoxygenation, Eutrophication, Microbial ecology
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