As one of the most important components of the lake ecosystem, microorganisms from the freshwater and sediment play an important role in many ecological processes. However, the difference and correlation of bacterial community between these two niches were not clear. This study investigated the diversity of microbial community of freshwater and sediment samples from fifteen locations in Poyang Lake wetland. The correlation between the bacterial community and physicochemical property of Poyang Lake wetland was analyzed by artificial neural network (ANN). Our results demonstrated that the freshwater and sediment bacterial community were dominated by groups of the Bacteroidetes (23.33%) and β-Proteobacteria (22.54%) separately, whereas, Canalipalpata, Bacillariophyta, Gemmatimonadetes, and Verrucomicrobia were detected in freshwater niches only. Phylogenetic analysis further indicated that bacterial composition in freshwater significantly differed with the sediment niches. There are 34 unique species accounted for 85% in fresh water samples and 28 unique species accounted for 82% in sediment samples. Cluster analysis further proved that all the samples from freshwater niches clustered closely together, far from the rest sediment samples. ANN analysis revealed that the freshwater with high N and P nutrients will greatly increase the diversity of the bacterial communities. In general, both environmental physicochemical properties, not each factor independently, contributed to the shift in the bacterial community structure. The five tributaries (Gan, Fu, Xin, Rao, Xiu Rivers) play a vital role in shaping the bacterial communities of Poyang Lake. This study provides new insights for understanding of microbial community compositions and structures of Poyang Lake wetland.
Keywords: Artificial neural network; Bacterial community composition; Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis; Phylogenetic analysis; Poyang Lake.