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. 2022 Jan 4:9:e12705.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.12705. eCollection 2022.

Seasonal variations and co-occurrence networks of bacterial communities in the water and sediment of artificial habitat in Laoshan Bay, China

Affiliations

Seasonal variations and co-occurrence networks of bacterial communities in the water and sediment of artificial habitat in Laoshan Bay, China

Guangjie Fang et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

Marine bacteria in the seawater and seafloor are essential parts of Earth's biodiversity, as they are critical participants of the global energy flow and the material cycles. However, their spatial-temporal variations and potential interactions among varied biotopes in artificial habitat are poorly understood. In this study, we profiled the variations of bacterial communities among seasons and areas in the water and sediment of artificial reefs using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and analyzed the potential interaction patterns among microorganisms. Distinct bacterial community structures in the two biotopes were exhibited. The Shannon diversity and the richness of phyla in the sediment were higher, while the differences among the four seasons were more evident in the water samples. The seasonal variations of bacterial communities in the water were more distinct, while significant variations among four areas were only observed in the sediment. Correlation analysis revealed that nitrite and mud content were the most important factors influencing the abundant OTUs in the water and sediment, respectively. Potential interactions and keystone species were identified based on the three co-occurrence networks. Results showed that the correlations among bacterial communities in the sediment were lower than in the water. Besides, the abundance of the top five abundant species and five keystone species had different changing patterns among four seasons and four areas. These results enriched our understanding of the microbial structures, dynamics, and interactions of microbial communities in artificial habitats, which could provide new insights into planning, constructing and managing these special habitats in the future.

Keywords: Artificial reefs; Habitat degradation; Keystone species; Marine biodiversity; Potential interaction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Seasonal change of Shannon diversity (mean ± SD) of bacterial communities in the two habitats of artificial reefs.
Means with different letter (lowercase letters for water samples, capital letters for sediment samples) are significantly different with P value < 0.05.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Relative abundance of bacterial communities at phylum level in the two habitats and four seasons of artificial reefs.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) plot of bacterial communities in the water and sediment of artificial reefs.
R: the test statistical significance of analysis of similarities (ANOSIM); P: statistical significance value at α = 0.05 level.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Seasonal variations of bacterial communities among samples in the water and sediment using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity.
Means with different letter (lowercase letters for water samples, capital letters for sediment samples) are significantly different with P value < 0.05.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Heatmap of top abundant OTUs of bacterial communities with environmental factors in the (A) water and (B) sediment of artificial reefs.
The cluster trees were analyzed to show the similarity of OTUs using Bray-Curtis distance. Asterisks represent significant correlations between bacterial OTUs and environmental factors at the following α levels: * = 0.05, ** = 0.01, *** = 0.001. Environmental factors: temperature (Temp); transparency (Trans); chemical oxygen demand (COD); active silicate (SiO3); suspended particulate materials (SPM); total organic carbon (TOC); ammonium (NH4-N); depth (Dep); chlorophyll-a (Chla); dissolved oxygen (DO); nitrite (NO2-N); turbidity (Turb); active phosphate (PO4); electrical conductivity (EC); water content (WC); salinity (Sal); mean particle sizes (Par); organic matter content (OM); sediment bulk density (BD); mud content (MC).
Figure 6
Figure 6. Co-occurrence networks built from abundant bacterial OTUs in the water and sediment of artificial reefs.
Nodes are colored at (A) habitats and (B) phylum levels. Edges with |r| ≥ 0.8 and P ≤ 0.001 are shown in the networks. Positive and negative lines are represented by solid lines and dotted lines, respectively.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Seasonal changes of the relative abundance for the top five abundant OTUs of the co-occurrence networks in the (A) water and sediment, (B) water and (C) sediment of artificial reefs.
Four seasons: spring (SPR); summer (SUM); autumn (AUT); winter (WIN).
Figure 8
Figure 8. Variations of the relative abundance for the top five abundant OTUs among four sampling areas of the co-occurrence networks in the (A) water and sediment, (B) water and (C) sediment of artificial reefs (ARs).
Four sampling areas in ARs: rock reefs (RR), transition areas (TA), concrete reefs (CR) and adjacent areas (AA).

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Grants and funding

This study was funded by the Project of Investigation of Fishery Resource of Marine Ranching from the Department of Agriculture and Countryside of Shandong Province. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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