Spatial patterns in host-associated and free-living bacterial communities across six temperate estuaries.

ABSTRACT: A major goal of microbial ecology is to establish the importance of spatial and environmental factors in driving community variation. Their relative importance likely varies across spatial scales, but focus has primarily been on free-living communities within well-connected aquatic environments rather than less connected island-like habitats such as estuaries, and key host-associated communities within these systems. Here we sampled both free-living (seawater and sediment) and host-associated (estuarine fish hindgut microbiome, Pelates sexlineatus) communities across six temperate Australian estuaries spanning ∼500 km. We find that spatial and environmental factors have different influences on these communities, with seawater demonstrating strong distance-decay relationships (R = -0.69) an

SUBMITTER: Suzzi AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10284270 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature