Structural and functional shifts of bacterioplanktonic communities associated with spatiotemporal gradients in river outlets of the subtropical Pearl River Estuary, South China.

In this study, we used high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons, to investigate the spatio-temporal variation in bacterial communities in surface-waters collected from eight major outlets of the Pearl River Estuary, South China. Betaproteobacteria were the most abundant class among the communities, followed by Gammaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Acidimicrobiia. Generally, alpha-diversity increased in winter communities and the taxonomic diversity of bacterial communities differed with seasonal and spatial differences. Temperature, conductivity, salinity, pH and nutrients were the crucial environmental factors associated with shifts in the bacterial community composition. Furthermore, inferred community functions that were associated with amino acid, carbohydrate and energy metabolisms were lower in winter, whereas the relative abundance of inferred functions associated with membrane transport, bacterial motility proteins, and xenobiotics biodegradation and metabolism, were enriched in winter. These results provide new insights into the dynamics of bacterial communities within estuarine ecosystems.

[Community structure of planktonic rotifers in the Pearl River Delta].

Four ecological investigations were carried out on planktonic rotifers in Pearl River Delta in 2012. The community structure, including spatial and temporal patterns of species composition, dominant species, biomass and biodiversity, was investigated. The correlation between the community structure of rotifers and the environmental factors was discussed. Moreover, the aggregation structures of rotifers were analyzed. A total of 53 rotifer species were found. Dominant species changed markedly with season and space. Polyarthra trigla had higher dominance. In terms of seasonal changes, the density and biomass were higher in dry season than in wet season, while the biodiversity and evenness indices were vice versa. The biomass and biodiversity of rotifers showed highly significant differences among seasons. In terms of spatial distribution, the average density and the average biomass showed an increase from the southwest to the northeast. The highest density and biomass were recorded in Shiqiao. The biodiversity and evenness indices had an opposite spatial distribution, with the highest values being recorded in Qingqi. The rotifer density was significantly different among the investigated sites, while the biomass and biodiversity were not significantly different. Correlation analysis demonstrated a highly significant positive correlation between rotifer density and biomass, as well as between biodiversity and evenness indices, and a highly negative correlation between biodiversity and biomass. The biodiversity and evenness indices both decreased markedly with the increase of biomass. Principal component analysis indicated that the rotifer density was closely correlated with environment factors, such as water temperature, pH, dissolved oxy- gen, chlorophyll a content, total phosphorus, and total nitrogen, in different seasons. Aggregation analysis based on rotifer density revealed five aggregation structures in the investigated sites, indicating significant differences in water quality among the investigated sites.