Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Aquatic Microbiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1444206

Spatiotemporal distributions, co-occurrence networks, and assembling mechanisms of bacterial community in sediments of the Yangtze River: comprehensive insights into abundant and rare taxa

Provisionally accepted
Guohua Zhang Guohua Zhang 1Shufeng Liu Shufeng Liu 2*Wenran Du Wenran Du 1Yinghao Li Yinghao Li 1Zongzhi Wu Zongzhi Wu 1Tang Liu Tang Liu 3Yichu Wang Yichu Wang 4
  • 1 Peking University, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
  • 2 China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
  • 3 Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China
  • 4 Beijing Normal University, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Sediments are the key reservoir for rare bacterial biosphere that provide broad ecological services and resilience in riverine ecosystems. Compared with planktons, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the ecological differences between abundant and rare taxa in benthic bacteria along a large river. Here, we offered the comprehensive insights into spatiotemporal distributions, co-occurrence networks, and assembly processes of three divided categories such as always rare taxa (ART), conditionally rare taxa (CRT), and conditionally rare and abundant taxa (CRAT) in sediments covering a distance of 4,300 km in the Yangtze River. Our study demonstrated that ART/CRT contributed a lot to higher Chao-1 index, Shannon-Wiener index, and phylogenetic α-diversity of benthic bacteria in autumn than in spring. ART showed a higher overall beta-diversity and CRT/CRAT exhibited more significant distance-decay patterns than ART in both seasons mainly corresponding to macroscopic landform types. CRT predominated the nonrandom co-occurrence network with holding 97% of the keystone species mostly affiliated with Acidobacteriota flourishing in lower-reach plain. Two selection processes posed greater influences on the assembling of CRT (74.7-77.6%), while CRAT were primarily driven by dispersal limitation (74.9-86.8%) and ART were driven by heterogeneous selection (33.9-48.5%) and the undominated stochasticity (32.7-36.5%). Natural factors like river flow and channel slope had more significant correlations with community variations of all three groups than nutrients, and total organic carbon mediated the balance among distinct assembly processes of ART and CRT in both seasons. Taken together, this study provided a better ecological understanding of the discrepancy on biogeographic patterns 4 between abundant and rare bacterial taxa in sediments of Asia's largest river.

    Keywords: The Yangtze River, Sedimentary bacteria, abundant and rare taxa, biogeography, Co-occurrence network, Assembling processes

    Received: 05 Jun 2024; Accepted: 02 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhang, Liu, Du, Li, Wu, Liu and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shufeng Liu, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.