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Epiphytic bacterial communities on two common submerged macrophytes in Taihu Lake: diversity and host-specificity

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Abstract

Leaves of terrestrial and aquatic plants are home to a wide diversity of bacterial species. However, the diversity and variability of epiphytic bacteria on their submerged plant hosts remains poorly understood. We investigated the diversity and composition of epiphytic bacteria from two common submerged macrophytes: Vallisneria natans and Hydrilla verticillata in Taihu Lake, Jiangsu, China, using methods of terminal restriction fragment length polymorphisms (T-RFLP) and clone library analyses targeted at bacterial 16S rRNA genes. The results show that: (1) the libraries of the two waterweeds contain wide phylogenetic distribution of bacteria, and that the sequences of the two libraries can be separated into 93 OTUs (at 97% similar value); (2) Betaproteobacteria, including Burkholderiales, was the most abundant bacterial group on both plants. Cyanobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria were the second largest groups on V. natans and H. verticillata, respectively. Both clone libraries included some sequences related to those of methanotrophs and nitrogen-fixing bacteria; (3) Cluster analysis of the T-RFLP profiles showed two distinct clusters corresponding to the two plant populations. Both ANOSIM of the T-RFLP data and Libshuff analysis of the two clone libraries indicated a significant difference in epiphytic bacterial communities between the two plants. Therefore, the epiphytic bacterial communities on submerged macrophytes appear to be diverse and host-specific, which may aid in understanding the ecological functions of submerged macrophytes in general.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Dan He  (何聃), Lijuan Ren  (任丽娟) & Qinglong Wu  (吴庆龙)

  2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Dan He  (何聃) & Lijuan Ren  (任丽娟)

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  1. Dan He  (何聃)
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  2. Lijuan Ren  (任丽娟)
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  3. Qinglong Wu  (吴庆龙)
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Correspondence to Qinglong Wu  (吴庆龙).

Additional information

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40730528), the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (No. 2008CB418104), the Knowledge Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KZCX2-YW-JC302), the Jiangsu Provincial Science Foundation (No. BK2009024), and the Frontier Foundation of Nanjing Institute of Geography & Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 09SL021001)

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He, D., Ren, L. & Wu, Q. Epiphytic bacterial communities on two common submerged macrophytes in Taihu Lake: diversity and host-specificity. Chin. J. Ocean. Limnol. 30, 237–247 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-012-1084-0

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