Pseudocochlodinium profundisulcus Resting Cysts Detected in the Ballast Tank Sediment of Ships Arriving in the Ports of China and North America and the Implications in the Species’ Geographic Distribution and Possible Invasion

Lixia Shang, Xinyu Zhai, Wen Tian, Yuyang Liu, Yangchun Han, Yunyan Deng, Zhangxi Hu and Ying Zhong Tang
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Lixia Shang: CAS Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
Xinyu Zhai: CAS Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
Wen Tian: State Key Laboratory of Ballast Water Research, Comprehensive Technical Service Center of Jiangyin Customs, Wuxi 214440, China
Yuyang Liu: CAS Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
Yangchun Han: State Key Laboratory of Ballast Water Research, Comprehensive Technical Service Center of Jiangyin Customs, Wuxi 214440, China
Yunyan Deng: CAS Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
Zhangxi Hu: CAS Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
Ying Zhong Tang: CAS Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 19, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Over the past several decades, much attention has been focused on the dispersal of aquatic nonindigenous species via ballast tanks of shipping vessels worldwide. The recently reclassified dinoflagellate Pseudocochlodinium profundisulcus (previously identified as Cochlodinium sp., Cochlodinium geminatum , or Polykrikos geminatus ) was not reported in China until 2006. However, algal blooming events caused by this organism have been reported almost every year since then in the Pearl River Estuary and its adjacent areas in China. Whether P. profundisulcus is an indigenous or an invasive species has thus become an ecological question of great scientific and practical significance. In this study, we collected the sediments from ballast tanks of ships arriving in the ports of China and North America and characterized dinoflagellate resting cysts via a combined approach. We germinated two dark brownish cysts from the tank of an international ship (Vessel A) arriving at the Jiangyin Port (China) into vegetative cells and identified them as P. profundisulcus by light and scanning electron microscopy and phylogenetic analyses for partial LSU rDNA sequences. We also identified P. profundisulcus cyst from the ballast tank sediment of a ship (Vessel B) arriving in the port of North America via single-cyst PCR and cloning sequencing, which indicated that this species could be transported as resting cyst via ship. Since phylogenetic analyses based on partial LSU rDNA sequences could not differentiate all sequences among our cysts from those deposited in the NCBI database into sub-groups, all populations from China, Australia, Japan, and the original sources from which the cysts in the two vessels arrived in China and North America were carried over appeared to share a very recent common ancestor, and the species may have experienced a worldwide expansion recently. These results indicate that P. profundisulcus cysts may have been extensively transferred to many regions of the world via ships’ ballast tank sediments. While our work provides an exemplary case for both the feasibility and complexity (in tracking the source) of the bio-invasion risk via the transport of live resting cysts by ship’s ballast tanks, it also points out an orientation for future investigation.

Keywords: biological invasion; dinoflagellate; harmful algal blooms (HABs); Pseudocochlodinium profundisulcus; resting cyst; ships’ ballast tank sediment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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