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Bacterioplankton Assembly Along a Eutrophication Gradient Is Mainly Structured by Environmental Filtering, Including Indirect Effects of Phytoplankton Composition

  • Microbiology of Aquatic Systems
  • Published:
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Abstract

Biotic interactions are suggested to be key factors structuring bacterioplankton community assembly but are rarely included in metacommunity studies. Eutrophication of ponds and lakes provides a useful opportunity to evaluate how bacterioplankton assembly is affected by specific environmental conditions, especially also by biotic interactions with other trophic levels such as phytoplankton and zooplankton. Here, we evaluated the importance of deterministic and stochastic processes on bacterioplankton community assembly in 35 shallow ponds along a eutrophication gradient in Belgium and assessed the direct and indirect effects of phytoplankton and zooplankton community variation on bacterioplankton assembly through a path analysis and network analysis. Environmental filtering by abiotic factors (suspended matter concentration and pH) explained the largest part of the bacterioplankton community variation. Phytoplankton community structure affected bacterioplankton structure through its effect on variation in chlorophyll-a and suspended matter concentration. Bacterioplankton communities were also spatially structured through pH. Overall, our results indicate that environmental variation is a key component driving bacterioplankton assembly along a eutrophication gradient and that indirect biotic interactions can also be important in explaining bacterioplankton community composition. Furthermore, eutrophication led to divergence in community structure and more eutrophic ponds had a higher diversity of bacteria.

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Data Availability

Sequences are available in the European Nucleotide Archive under the project number PRJEB47016.

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Not applicable.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Kristien Brans, Carla Denis, Jessie Engelen, Melissa Schepens and for their contributions to the fieldwork and laboratory analyses. We also thank the different TippingPond partners at ISARA, University of Oldenburg, and Uppsala University for their help with the landscape analyses and their contributions to the general development of the TippingPond project.

Funding

This work was financially supported by the ERA-Net BiodivERsA project TippingPond, nationally financed by Belspo, and by KU Leuven Research Fund excellence center financing PF/2010/07. Fabio Toshiro T. Hanashiro is supported by the Science Without Borders program (process number: 245968/2012–1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution & Conservation, KU Leuven, Charles Deberiotstraat 32, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Fabio Toshiro T. Hanashiro, Luc De Meester, Matthias Vanhamel, Shinjini Mukherjee, Andros T. Gianuca, Edwin van den Berg & Caroline Souffreau

  2. Leibniz Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei (IGB), Müggelseedamm 310, 12587, Berlin, Germany

    Luc De Meester

  3. Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Strasse 1-3, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Luc De Meester

  4. Laboratory of Reproductive Genomics, KU Leuven, ON I Herestraat 49, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Shinjini Mukherjee

  5. Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, 59078-900, Brazil

    Andros T. Gianuca

  6. Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, University of Oldenburg, Schleusenstrasse 1, 26382, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Laura Verbeek

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  1. Fabio Toshiro T. Hanashiro
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  2. Luc De Meester
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  7. Edwin van den Berg
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  8. Caroline Souffreau
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Contributions

Fabio Toshiro T. Hanashiro, Luc De Meester, and Caroline Souffreau contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Fabio Toshiro T. Hanashiro, Matthias Vanhamel, Andros T. Gianuca, Laura Verbeek, and Edwin Van den Berg. Data analyses were performed by Fabio Toshiro T. Hanashiro, Shinjini Mukherjee, and Caroline Souffreau. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Fabio Toshiro T. Hanashiro, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Fabio Toshiro T. Hanashiro.

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Hanashiro, F.T.T., De Meester, L., Vanhamel, M. et al. Bacterioplankton Assembly Along a Eutrophication Gradient Is Mainly Structured by Environmental Filtering, Including Indirect Effects of Phytoplankton Composition. Microb Ecol 85, 400–410 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-022-01994-x

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