Hong Lv

The simultaneous analysis of multiple components of ecosystems is crucial for comprehensive studies of environmental changes in aquatic ecosystems, but such studies are rare. In this study, we analyzed simultaneously the bacterioplankton and phytoplankton communities in three Chinese subtropical reservoirs and compared the response of these two components to seasonal environmental changes. Time-lag analysis indicated that the temporal community dynamics of both bacterioplankton and phytoplankton showed significant directional changes, and variance partitioning suggested that the major reason was the gradual improvement of reservoir water quality from middle eutrophic to oligo-mesotrophic levels during the course of our study. In addition, we found a higher level of temporal stability or stochasticity in the bacterioplankton community than in the phytoplankton community. Potential explanations are that traits associated with bacteria, such as high abundance, widespread dispersal, potential for rapid growth rates, and rapid evolutionary adaptation, may underlie the different stability or stochasticity of bacterioplankton and phytoplankton communities to the environmental changes. In addition, the indirect response of bacterioplankton to nitrogen and phosphorus may result in the fact that environmental deterministic selection was stronger for the phytoplankton than for the bacterioplankton communities.

Both phytoplankton and bacteria are key and abundant components of aquatic ecosystems and play pivotal roles in maintaining ecosystem structure and function. However, the extent to which phytoplankton community succession influences changes in bacterial community composition (BCC) is largely unknown. In this study, we evaluated the correlations between bacteria and phytoplankton communities and determined the relative contribution of phytoplankton community succession to temporal variation of BCC in a subtropical drinking water reservoir (Tingxi Reservoir, southeast China). Bacterial communities were investigated by quantitative PCR and 454 pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes, while phytoplankton communities were analyzed by light microscopy. A remarkable seasonal succession from Cyanophyta to Bacillariophyta was observed during the study period, and this succession can accurately predict the distribution and abundance of the bacterial OTUs based on the discriminant function analysis. Association networks revealed that 38 of the 46 abundant bacterial OTUs exhibited significant correlations with phytoplankton. More interestingly, the positive correlations dominated the associated network, which may suggest that facilitative correlations between phytoplankton and bacteria are more important than inhibitory correlations in the Tingxi Reservoir. In addition, some bacterial OTUs were closely correlated with the dynamics of Microcystis, and they were affiliated with the divisions Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria. Structural equation model showed that succession of phytoplankton community explained the largest part of temporal variation in BCC. Therefore, our data suggest that the distinct succession of phytoplankton community may mediate the temporal dynamics of bacterial community in the Tingxi Reservoir.