Study on the assemblies of protistan and bacterial communities in the South China Sea

Microbial organisms play a crucial role in marine food webs and global nutrient cycling. Little is known about how community assembly and species association vary with habitat and depth. This study investigated the assembly and association of protistan and bacterial communities across a coastal-shelf-slope-basin gradient of the South China Sea.The results contribute to our understanding of the assembly mechanism and species association of microbes across habitats and depths.