Coalescence of soil and lake bacteria in ambient and high DOC freshwater

Dispersal in microorganisms is complex, since it is - unlike many larger organisms – not restricted to the dispersal of a few external species into a local community. Instead, it involves mixing of both 'local' and 'external' biotic communities as well as their associated abiotic matrices, thus exposing each community set to new environmental conditions. To address the question of how coalescence between freshwater and soil bacteria affects the identity and diversity of taxa and expressed genes and functional stability of bacterial communities, we combined ratios of soil and lake bacteria in high and ambient DOC treatments in freshwater. We collected time series of samples over 8 days and sequenced samples for 16S rDNA amplicons.