Assessing spatial and temporal patterns of benthic bacterial communities in response to different sediment conditions

Abstract

Benthic bacterial communities are sensitive to habitat condition and present a fast response to environmental stressors, which makes them powerful ecological indicators of estuarine environments. The aim of this work is to study the spatial-temporal patterns of benthic bacterial communities in response to contrasting environmental conditions and assess their potential as ecological indicators of estuarine sediments. We characterized the diversity of bacterial communities in three contrasting sites on Sado Estuary (SW Coast, Portugal) and 4 sampling occasions, using 16S metagenomic approach. Based on previous studies, we hypothesized that diversity patterns of bacterial communities will be distinct between sites and across sampling occasions. Bacterial communities were more influenced by each site conditions than by temporal variations in the sediments. The main drivers of bacterial distribution were sediments’ composition, organic contents, and hydrodynamic activity. This work provided an important baseline dataset from Sado estuary to explore bacterial networks concerning benthic ecosystem functioning.