Weak Coherence in Abundance Patterns Between Bacterial Classes and Their Constituent OTUs Along a Regulated River
OPEN ACCESS
Loading...
Author / Producer
Date
2015-11
Publication Type
Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
no
Citations
Altmetric
OPEN ACCESS
Data
Rights / License
Abstract
Deductions about the ecology of high taxonomic bacterial ranks (i.e., phylum, class, order) are often based on their abundance patterns, yet few studies have quantified how accurately variations in abundance of these bacterial groups represent the dynamics of the taxa within them. Using 454-pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, we investigated whether the changes in abundance of six dominant bacterial classes (Actinobacteria, Beta-/Alpha-/Gamma-proteobacteria, Flavobacteria, and Sphingobacteria) along a large dam-regulated river are reflected by those of their constituent Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs; 97% similarity level). The environmental impact generated by the reservoirs promoted clear compositional shifts in all bacterial classes that resulted from changes in the abundance of individual OTUs rather than from the appearance of new taxa along the river. Abundance patterns at the class level represented the dynamics of only a small but variable proportion of their constituting OTUs, which were not necessarily the most abundant ones. Within most classes, we detected sub-groups of OTUs showing contrasting responses to reservoir-induced environmental changes. Overall, we show that the patterns observed at the class level fail to capture the dynamics of a significant fraction of their constituent members, calling for caution when the ecological attributes of high-ranks are to be interpreted.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
External links
Editor
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
6
Pages / Article No.
1293
Publisher
Frontiers Media
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
freshwater bacterioplankton; bacterial community composition; high-rank lineages; ecological coherence; river gradient; 454-pyrosequencing
Organisational unit
09583 - Sunagawa, Shinichi / Sunagawa, Shinichi