Bacterial communities from the water column and the surface sediments along a transect in the East Sea (Sea of Japan)

We determined the composition of water and sediment bacterial assemblages from the East Sea using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Total bacterial reads were greater in surface waters (500 m) and sediments. However, total OTUs, bacterial diversity, and evenness were greater in deep seawaters than in surface waters with those in the sediment comparable to the deep sea waters. Proteobacteria was the most dominant bacterial phylum comprising 67.3% of the total sequence reads followed by Bacteriodetes (15.8%). Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia, and Actinobacteria followed all together consisting of only 8.1% of the total sequence. Candidatus Pelagibacter ubique considered oligotrophic bacteria, and Planctomycetes copiotrophic bacteria showed an opposite distribution in the surface waters, suggesting a potentially direct competition for available resources by these bacteria with different traits. The bacterial community in the warm surface waters were well separated from the other deep cold seawater and sediment samples. The bacteria exclusively associated with deep sea waters was Actinobacteriacea, known to be prevalent in the deep photic zone. The bacterial group Chromatiales and Lutibacter were those exclusively associated with the sediment samples. The overall bacterial community showed similarities in the horizontal rather than vertical direction in the East Sea.