title: Spatial distribution of bacterial communities driven by multiple environmental factors in a beach wetland of the largest freshwater lake in China.
abstract: The spatial distributions of bacterial communities may be driven by multiple environmental factors. Thus, understanding the relationships between bacterial distribution and environmental factors is critical for understanding wetland stability and the functioning of freshwater lakes. However, little research on the bacterial communities in deep sediment layers exists. In this study, thirty clone libraries of 16S rRNA were constructed from a beach wetland of the Poyang Lake along both horizontal (distance to the water-land junction) and vertical (sediment depth) gradients to assess the effects of sediment properties on bacterial community structure and diversity. Our results showed that bacterial diversity increased along the horizontal gradient and decreased along the vertical gradient. The heterogeneous sediment properties along gradients substantially affected the dominant bacterial groups at the phylum and species levels. For example, the NH(+) 4 concentration decreased with increasing depth, which was positively correlated with the relative abundance of Alphaproteobacteria. The changes in bacterial diversity and dominant bacterial groups showed that the top layer had a different bacterial community structure than the deeper layers. Principal component analysis revealed that both gradients, not each gradient independently, contributed to the shift in the bacterial community structure. A multiple linear regression model explained the changes in bacterial diversity and richness along the depth and distance gradients. Overall, our results suggest that spatial gradients associated with sediment properties shaped the bacterial communities in the Poyang Lake beach wetland.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences and Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University Nanchang, China ; School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences and Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University Nanchang, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Jue
authors.initials: XJ
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences and Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University Nanchang, China.
authors.forename: Bin-Song
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: College of Life and Environment Science, Shanghai Normal University Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences and Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University Nanchang, China ; Ministry of Education Key Lab for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, The Institute of Biodiversity Science, Fudan University Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Jia-Kuan
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences and Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University Nanchang, China ; Ministry of Education Key Lab for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, The Institute of Biodiversity Science, Fudan University Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Education Key Lab for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, The Institute of Biodiversity Science, Fudan University Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Chang-Ming
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences and Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University Nanchang, China ; Ministry of Education Key Lab for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, The Institute of Biodiversity Science, Fudan University Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nie
keywords: 16S rRNA; Poyang Lake; bacteria; community structure; freshwater lake wetland; spatial distribution