Spatiotemporal succession of bacteria in Alpine glacier foreland chronosequences

This hypothesis-based study aimed at testing ecological theory of community assembly on bacteria, using three Alpine glacier forelands as model systems. In these chronosequences, distance from the glacier front was used as a proxy for time since soil was uncovered by ice in these receding glacier terrains. Forces that drive bacterial succession over soil ageing after deglaciation were found to be different when looking at taxonomy or function: functional community profiles were mostly filtered by environmental conditions, both biotic and abiotic, while taxonomic community profiles were more subject to stochasticity. Changes of functional and taxonomic community structure and diversity, with both space and time, stress the critical spatiotemporal flexibility of bacterial assemblages and the need to consider both dimensions when studying bacterial community ecology