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Dynamics in Bacterial Community Affected by Mesoscale Eddies in the Northern Slope of the South China Sea

  • Microbiology of Aquatic Systems
  • Published:
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Abstract

Mesoscale eddies are common oceanographic processes that can enhance primary productivity by transporting nutrients to the euphotic zone. In the northern South China Sea (SCS), eddies were frequently found to promote the exchange between the nutrient-rich shelf water and the oligotrophic water at the slope area. However, the response of bacterial community to eddy perturbations remains unclear. In the present study, we examined the variation of bacterial community under the impact of eddies in early spring and summer. The results showed that both the summer cyclonic eddy and spring anticyclonic eddy enhanced the bacterial abundance in surface water. The bacterial community composition and their functional potentials of surface samples were also influenced by the summer cyclonic eddy, while no significant change was observed in the case of spring anticyclonic eddy. Salinity and nutrients, which varied between the inside and outside of the eddies, were the significant factors explaining the differentiation of the community composition and related functions. Taken together, the results of our present study reveal the effects of mesoscale eddies on the bacterial community and associated metagenomes, providing a better understanding of the dynamics of bacteria in the slope ecosystem of the SCS.

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Data Availability

The amplicons and metagenomics sequences were deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Sequence Read Archive with the accession number PRJNA521300.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the scientists and crew of the cruises in 2014, 2015, and 2017 conducted by the R/V Nanfeng and the MCP cruise in 2016 conducted by R/V Kexue #3, for providing professional support and kind help in sampling and data collection. We thank Prof. Xiaoxia Sun and Dr. Shan Zheng from the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for providing the data of planktonic abundance and primary production in the sampling area.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant Number: 2014CB441503).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Ye Lu, Jiahua Wang, Xiang Xiao & Jun Xu

  2. School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Ye Lu, Yu Zhang, Jiahua Wang & Jun Xu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Miao Zhang & Ying Wu

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  1. Ye Lu
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  2. Yu Zhang
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Contributions

J.X. and Y.L. designed the experiment. Y.L. and Y.Z. collected the samples. Y.L. performed the experiment and analysis. Y.W. and M.Z. provided the chemical data. Y.L. and J.W. performed the metagenomics processing. Y.L., Y.Z., X.X., and J.X. wrote the manuscript, in consultation with all authors.

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Correspondence to Jun Xu.

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Lu, Y., Zhang, Y., Wang, J. et al. Dynamics in Bacterial Community Affected by Mesoscale Eddies in the Northern Slope of the South China Sea. Microb Ecol 83, 823–836 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-021-01816-6

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