Geographic Dispersal Limitation Dominated Assembly Processes of Bacterial Communities on Microplastics Compared to Water and Sediment
Weihong Zhang, Lu Chen, Haiyang Chen, Wenzhi Liu, Yuyi Yang
Abstract
In river systems, microplastics create new microbial niches that significantly differ from those of the surrounding environment. However, the potential relationships between the biogeographic distribution and assembly processes of microbial communities on microplastics were still not well understood. This study could help us address the lack of knowledge about the assembly processes of bacterial communities on microplastics caused by selection from the surrounding environment. In this study, strong geographic dispersal limitation dominated assembly processes of bacterial communities on microplastics, compared to water and sediment, which may be responsible for the microplastic bacterial richness, and the niche distance was lower than those in water and sediment. In addition, sediment may be the main potential source of bacterial communities on microplastics in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, which makes higher community similarity between microplastics and sediment than between microplastics and water.