Regime transition Shapes the Composition, Assembly Processes, and Co-occurrence Pattern of Bacterioplankton Community in a Large Eutrophic Freshwater Lake

At certain nutrient concentrations, shallow freshwater lakes are generally characterized by two contrasting ecological regimes with disparate patterns of biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles: a macrophyte-dominated regime (MDR) and a phytoplankton-dominated regime (PDR). To reveal ecological mechanisms that affect bacterioplankton along the regime shift, Illumina MiSeq sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene combined with a novel network clustering tool (Manta) were used to identify patterns of bacterioplankton community composition across the regime shift in Taihu Lake, China. Marked divergence in the composition and ecological assembly processes of bacterioplankton community was observed under the regime shift. The alpha diversity of the bacterioplankton community consistently and continuously decreased with the regime shift from MDR to PDR, while the beta diversity presents differently. Moreover, as the regime shifted from MDR to PDR, the contribution of deterministic processes (such as environmental selection) to the assembly of bacterioplankton community initially decreased and then increased again as regime shift from MDR to PDR, most likely as a consequence of differences in nutrient concentration. The topological properties, including modularity, transitivity and network diameter, of the bacterioplankton co-occurrence networks changed along the regime shift, and the co-occurrences among species changed in structure and were significantly shaped by the environmental variables along the regime transition from MDR to PDR. The divergent environmental state of the regimes with diverse nutritional status may be the most important factor that contributes to the dissimilarity of bacterioplankton community composition along the regime shift.

Automated summary

The study reveals that the composition and ecological assembly processes of bacterioplankton community significantly diverge during the regime shift from MDR to PDR. The alpha diversity of bacterioplankton community decreases continuously with the shift, while beta diversity shows different patterns. The contribution of deterministic processes to the assembly of bacterioplankton community initially decreases and then increases again along the regime shift, likely due to differences in nutrient concentration.