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Spatial and vertical distribution of bacterial community in the northern South China Sea

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Abstract

Microbial communities are highly diverse in coastal oceans and response rapidly with changing environments. Learning about this will help us understand the ecology of microbial populations in marine ecosystems. This study aimed to assess the spatial and vertical distributions of the bacterial community in the northern South China Sea. Multi-dimensional scaling analyses revealed structural differences of the bacterial community among sampling sites and vertical depth. Result also indicated that bacterial community in most sites had higher diversity in 0–75 m depths than those in 100–200 m depths. Bacterial community of samples was positively correlation with salinity and depth, whereas was negatively correlation with temperature. Proteobacteria and Cyanobacteria were the dominant groups, which accounted for the majority of sequences. The α-Proteobacteria was highly diverse, and sequences belonged to Rhodobacterales bacteria were dominant in all characterized sequences. The current data indicate that the Rhodobacterales bacteria, especially Roseobacter clade are the diverse group in the tropical waters.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41406130, 41176101 and 41430966), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA10020225), the key projects in the National Science & Technology Pillar Program in the Eleventh Five-year Plan Period (2012BAC07B0402) and State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography (No.LTOZZ1402). We also thank the open cruises of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology in 2011.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Fu-Lin Sun, You-Shao Wang, Mei-Lin Wu, Cui-Ci Sun & Hao Cheng

  2. Daya Bay Marine Biology Research Station, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, 518121, China

    Fu-Lin Sun, You-Shao Wang & Cui-Ci Sun

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  1. Fu-Lin Sun
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  2. You-Shao Wang
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Correspondence to You-Shao Wang.

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10646_2015_1472_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 156 kb). Comparison of the microbial diversity of sampling sites in the northern South China Sea

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Sun, FL., Wang, YS., Wu, ML. et al. Spatial and vertical distribution of bacterial community in the northern South China Sea. Ecotoxicology 24, 1478–1485 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1472-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1472-2

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