Local Environmental Conditions Shape Generalist But Not Specialist Components of Microbial Metacommunities in the Baltic Sea.

ABSTRACT: Marine microbes exhibit biogeographical patterns linked with fluxes of matter and energy. Yet, knowledge of the mechanisms shaping bacterioplankton community assembly across temporal scales remains poor. We examined bacterioplankton 16S rRNA gene fragments obtained from Baltic Sea transects to determine phylogenetic relatedness and assembly processes coupled with niche breadth. Communities were phylogenetically more related over time than expected by chance, albeit with considerable temporal variation. Hence, habitat filtering, i.e., local environmental conditions, rather than competition structured bacterioplankton communities in summer but not in spring or autumn. Species sorting (SS) was the dominant assembly process, but temporal and taxonomical variation in mechanisms was observed. Fo

SUBMITTER: Lindh MV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5180196 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature