Journal
AQUATIC MICROBIAL ECOLOGY
Volume 70, Issue 1, Pages 77-85Publisher
INTER-RESEARCH
DOI: 10.3354/ame01647
Keywords
Large lake; Bacterial community composition; 16S rDNA PCR-DGGE; Horizontal distribution; Vertical distribution; Habitat homogeneity; Multiple factorial analysis
Categories
Funding
- Estonian Science Foundation [6080]
- European Regional Development Fund through the Center of Excellence in Chemical Biology
- European Social Fund [MJD51]
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The variability and patchiness in composition of bacterial communities were studied in a large eutrophic boreal lake (280 km(2)) with a mean depth of < 3 m. The present study was undertaken to determine the factors that influence species dispersal in the sediment environment of large shallow lakes and to test the hypothesis that species dispersal in the sediment is heterogeneous. Surficial sediment samples were collected according to both transect and 'log-wise' sampling designs. For the vertical slicing of sediment samples, steps were chosen according to average deposition rates. Bacterial community composition (BCC) was examined by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of PCR amplification products from DNA extracted from the total community. The relationships of the DGGE fingerprint to space, bacterial abundance, production, and dry weight of the sediment were analyzed using multivariate statistical methods. The BCC was found to be uniform over both the 1 to 1000 m ('log-wise') and kilometer (> 10 km transect) scales. An increase in bacterial diversity from the river bed to mid-lake corresponded to the sediment type and was related to an increase in productivity. Vertically, the bacterial diversity decreased with sediment depth while the bacterial community in the upper 2 to 5 cm of sediment was almost homogeneous. These data suggest that BCC of organic-rich sediment is very homogeneous horizontally, and the upper centimeters of the sediment undergo frequent mixing, leading to similar homogeneity.
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