Drivers of bacterial diversity along a natural transect from freshwater to saline subtropical wetlands

Abstract

Tropical coastal wetlands provide a range of ecosystem services that are closely associated with microbially-driven biogeochemical processes. Knowledge of the main players and their drivers in those processes can have huge implications on the carbon and nutrient fluxes in wetland soils, and thus on the ecosystems services we derive from them. Here, we collected surface (0–5 cm) and subsurface (20–25 cm) soil samples along a transect from forested freshwater wetlands, to saltmarsh, and mangroves. For each sample, we measured a range of abiotic properties and characterised the diversity of bacterial communities using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. The alpha diversity of bacterial communities in mangroves exceeded that of freshwater wetlands, which were dominated by members of the Acidobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia, and associated with high soil pore-water concentrations of soluble reactive phosphorous, and nitrogen as nitrate and nitrite (N-NOX−). Bacterial communities in the saltmarsh were strongly stratified by depth and included members of the Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, and Deltaproteobacteria. Finally, the mangroves were dominated by representatives of Deltaproteobacteria, mainly Desulfobacteraceae and Synthrophobacteraceae, and were associated with high salinity and soil pore-water concentrations of ammonium (N-NH4+). These communities suggest methane consumption in freshwater wetlands, and sulfate reduction in deep soils of marshes and in mangroves. Our work contributes to the important goal of describing reference conditions for specific wetlands in terms of both bacterial communities and their drivers. This information may be used to monitor change and assess wetland health and function.