Contrasting community assembly processes structure lotic bacteria metacommunities along the river continuum.

ABSTRACT: The heterogeneous nature of lotic habitats plays an important role in the complex ecological and evolutionary processes that structure the microbial communities within them. Due to such complexity, our understanding of lotic microbial ecology still lacks conceptual frameworks for the ecological processes that shape these communities. We explored how bacterial community composition and underlying ecological assembly processes differ between lotic habitats by examining community composition and inferring community assembly processes across four major habitat types (free-living, particle-associated, biofilm on benthic stones and rocks, and sediment). This was conducted at 12 river sites from headwater streams to the main river in the River Thames, UK. Our results indicate that there are disti

SUBMITTER: Gweon HS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7898806 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature