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Microbial diversity and community structure along a lake elevation gradient in Y osemite N ational P ark, C alifornia, USA
Author(s) -
Hayden Curtis J.,
Beman J. Michael
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
environmental microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.954
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1462-2920
pISSN - 1462-2912
DOI - 10.1111/1462-2920.12938
Subject(s) - biogeochemical cycle , biology , community structure , ecology , ecosystem , species evenness , microbial population biology , beta diversity , species richness , microbial ecology , genetics , bacteria
Summary Microbial communities are key components of lake ecosystems and play central roles in lake biogeochemical cycles. Freshwater lakes, in turn, have a disproportionate influence on global carbon and nitrogen cycling, while also acting as ‘sentinels’ of environmental change. Determining what factors regulate microbial community dynamics and their relationship to lake biogeochemistry is therefore essential to understanding global change feedbacks. We used I llumina sequencing of >2 million 16 S r RNA genes to examine microbial community structure and diversity in relation to spatial, temporal and biogeochemical variation, within and across lakes located along a 871 m elevation gradient in Y osemite N ational P ark, C alifornia, USA . We captured a rich microbial community that included many rare operational taxonomic units ( OTUs ), but was dominated by a few bacterial classes and OTU s frequently detected in other freshwater ecosystems. Neither richness, evenness nor overall diversity was directly related to elevation. However, redundancy analysis showed that changes in microbial community structure were significantly related to elevation. Along with sampling period and dissolved nutrient concentrations, 29% of the variation in community structure could be explained by measured variables – in congruence with studies in other lakes using different techniques. We also found a distance–decay relationship in microbial community structure across lakes, suggesting that both local environmental factors and dispersal play a role in structuring communities.