Coordinated Metacommunity Assembly and Spatial Distribution of Multiple Microbial Kingdoms within a Lake

Freshwater planktonic communities comprise a tremendous diversity of microorganisms. This study investigated the distribution patterns of microbial kingdoms (bacteria, fungi, protists, and microbial metazoans) within a lake ecosystem. Water samples were collected from 50 sites along the shoreline in a lake during an early eutrophication period, and MiSeq sequencing was performed with different marker genes. Metacommunity analyses revealed a bimodal occupancy-frequency distribution and a Clementsian gradient persisting throughout all microbial kingdoms, suggesting similar regional processes in all kingdoms. Variation partitioning revealed that environmental characteristics, macrophyte/macroinvertebrate composition, space coordinates, and distance-based Moran’s eigenvector maps (dbMEM) together could explain up to 29% of the community variances in microbial kingdoms. Kingdom synchrony results showed strong couplings between kingdoms (R2 ≥ 0.31), except between Fungi and Metazoa (R2 = 0.09). Another variation partitioning revealed that microbial kingdoms could well explain their community variances up to 73%. Interestingly, the kingdom Protista was best synchronized with the other kingdoms. A correlation network showed that positive associations between kingdoms outnumbered the negative ones and that the kingdom Protista acted as a hub among kingdoms. Module analysis showed that network modules included multi-kingdom associations that were prevalent. Our findings suggest that protists coordinate community assembly and distribution of other kingdoms, and inter-kingdom interactions are a key determinant in shaping their community structures in a freshwater lake.