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Composition of supralittoral sediments bacterial communities in a Mediterranean island

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Abstract

Marine coasts represent highly dynamic ecosystems, with sandy beaches being one of the most heterogeneous. Despite the key importance of sandy beaches as transition ecosystems between sea and land, very few studies on the microbiological composition of beach sediments have been performed. To provide a first description of microbial composition of supralittoral sediments, we investigated the composition of bacterial communities of three sandy beaches, at Favignana Island, Italy, using metagenetic approaches (Terminal-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism, sequencing of 16S rRNA genes by Illumina-Solexa technology, functional genes detection, and quantitative Real-Time PCR). Results showed that the investigated beaches are harboring a rich bacterial diversity, mainly composed by members of classes Alphaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Flavobacteria and Actinobacteria. The metagenetic analysis showed profiles of decreasing beta diversity and increasing richness, as well as a differentiation of communities, along the sea-to-land axis. In particular, members of Firmicutes and Proteobacteria displayed contrasting profiles of relative abundance (to decrease and to increase, respectively) along the sea-to-land axis of the beach. Finally, a search for the presence of genes related to the nitrogen and carbon biogeochemical cycle (nifH, nosZ, pmoA/amoA) detected the presence of ammonia monoxygenase sequences (amoA) only, suggesting the presence of bacterial ammonia oxidation to some extent, probably due to members of Nitrospira, but with the lack of nitrogen fixation and denitrification.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Marine Protected Area “Isole Egadi” for authorization to obtain samplings. This work was supported by intramural funding (Fondo di Ateneo, ex 60%) of the University of Florence to AU and AM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino Science Park, via Madonna del Piano 6, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Firenze, Italy

    Giovanni Bacci, Ettore Pagoto, Alberto Ugolini & Alessio Mengoni

  2. Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura, Centro di Ricerca per lo Studio delle Relazioni tra Pianta e Suolo (CRA-RPS), Via della Navicella 2/4, 00184, Rome, Italy

    Giovanni Bacci

  3. Department of Chemistry, University of Florence, via della Lastruccia 13, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy

    Maurizio Passaponti

  4. Department of Earth Science, University of Florence, via La Pira, 4, 50121, Florence, Italy

    Pietro Vannocci

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  1. Giovanni Bacci
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  2. Ettore Pagoto
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  3. Maurizio Passaponti
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  4. Pietro Vannocci
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Correspondence to Alessio Mengoni.

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Figure S1

Flowchart of the resampling procedure (PDF 1806 kb)

Figure S2

Boxplots of random taxonomic attribution obtained with resample and observed differences. The observed differences were plotted as a red point and or blue triangle. See material and methods for details (PDF 56 kb)

Figure S3

Rarefaction analysis on different taxonomic levels. a) Phylum; b) Order; c) Class; d) Family. Each curve was rarefied using the minimum richness value from one of the tree samples. The analysis shows that an exhaustive overview of the total biodiversity could only be achieved considering less specific taxonomic levels as the order or family levels (PDF 140 kb)

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Bacci, G., Pagoto, E., Passaponti, M. et al. Composition of supralittoral sediments bacterial communities in a Mediterranean island. Ann Microbiol 65, 1–13 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13213-014-0829-8

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