3.2.2. Case study 2
The oceanic distribution of Chlorophyta was reported by (Lopes dos
Santos et al., 2017) based on the Tara Oceans 18S-V9 rRNA
metabarcode dataset. In this study, prasinophytes clade VII and
mamiellophyceae appeared to be the most abundant group of Chlorophyta in
the oceans. Prasinophytes clade VII were abundant in open ocean waters
whereas mamielophyceae were abundant in a larger spectrum of
environments, including high latitudes as well as the Benguela current
(Figure 4 in (Lopes dos Santos et al., 2017)). Using the OBA
“Community ecological analysis “ interface applied to the same
metabarcode dataset, we obtained similar oceanic distributions of these
two Chlorophyta groups (“prasino clade VII” and “mamiellophyceae”)
in the plankton size fraction ranging from 0.8 to 5 µm. Indeed, figures
6A and 6B confirm respectively that prasinophytes clade VII were more
abundant in open ocean waters, whereas Mamiellophyceae were also
abundant in coastal waters. Moreover, the scatter-plots of their
relative abundance (% OTUs) versus sampling latitude illustrates the
clear bounding of prasinophytes clade VII within 40 degrees of latitude
(Figure 5C), whereas Mamiellophyceae extend into high latitudes both in
the northern and southern hemispheres (Figure 5D).