In the right place, at the right time: the integration of bacteria into the Plankton Ecology Group model

Background
Planktonic microbial communities have critical impacts on the pelagic food web and water quality status in freshwater ecosystems, yet no general model of bacterial community assembly linked to higher trophic levels and hydrodynamics has been assessed. In this study, we utilized a two-year survey of planktonic communities from bacteria to zooplankton on three freshwater reservoirs to investigate their spatiotemporal dynamics.
Result
We observed the site-specific presence and microdiversification of bacteria in lacustrine and riverine environments, as well as in deep hypolimnia. Moreover, we determined recurrent bacterial seasonal patterns driven by both biotic and abiotic conditions, which could be integrated into the well-known Phytoplankton Ecology Group (PEG) model describing primarily the seasonalities of larger plankton groups. Importantly, bacteria with different ecological potentials showed finely coordinated successions affiliated with four seasonal phases, including t...