Abstract
Aquatic microorganisms in the sediment and water column
are closely related; however, their distribution patterns between
these two habitats still remain largely unknown. In this
study, we compared sediment and water microeukaryotic and
bacterial microorganisms in aquaculture ponds from different
areas in China, and analyzed the influencing environmental
factors as well as the inter-taxa relationships. We found that
bacteria were significantly more abundant than fungi in both
sediment and water, and the bacterial richness and diversity
in sediment were higher than in water in all the sampling
areas, but no significant differences were found between the
two habitats for microeukaryotes. Bacterial taxa could be
clearly separated through cluster analysis between the sediment
and water, while eukaryotic taxa at all classification
levels could not. Spirochaetea, Deltaproteobacteria, Nitrospirae,
Ignavibacteriae, Firmicutes, Chloroflexi, and Lentimicrobiaceae
were more abundantly distributed in sediment,
while Betaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacter, Cyanobacteria,
Roseiflexaceae, Dinghuibacter, Cryomorphaceae, and Actinobacteria
were more abundant in water samples. For eukaryotes,
only Cryptomonadales were found to be distributed
differently between the two habitats. Microorganisms in sediment
were mainly correlated with enzymes related to organic
matter decomposition, while water temperature, pH, dissolved
oxygen, and nutrient levels all showed significant correlation
with the microbial communities in pond water. Intensive interspecific
relationships were also found among eukaryotes
and bacteria. Together, our results indicated that eukaryotic
microorganisms are distributed less differently between sediment
and water in aquaculture ponds compared to bacteria.
This study provides valuable data for evaluating microbial
distributions in aquatic environments, which may also be of
practical use in aquaculture pond management.
Citations
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