Microbial community structure and ecology in sediments of a pristine mangrove forest

Abstract

Mangrove forests are coastal intertidal ecosystems, characterized by mangrove trees growing in slow moving saline waters, that constitute a large portion of the coastline in the tropical and subtropical regions. The dynamic water regime created by the tides results in different microhabitats in which microbial communities play an essential role in the functioning and maintenance of the mangrove ecosystem. However, little is known about the diversity of taxa within these micro-habitats and their functional roles, as only a small fraction of these organisms can be cultured in the laboratory. In this study, we characterized the microbial community present in three distinct regions of mangrove sediments from the Serinhaem estuary, part of the Atlantic Forest biome within the Environmental Protection Area of Pratigi. We sampled sediments from regions below the tidal waterline (submerged), intertidal regions (intertidal), and regions above the tidal waterline (seco). More than 85% of all the sequences in the samples belonged to 6 of 42 identified phyla: Proteobacteria (30.6%), Firmicutes (30%), Chloroflexi (8.7%), Planctomycetes (5.7%), Crenarchaeota (5.4%) and Actinobacteria (5.3%). Diversity indices show that the submerged regions of the mangrove forest exhibit the greatest diversity and richness relative to the other regions. Notably, the intertidal region has the least diversity, suggesting that the dynamics of environmental variables in this region has an important influence on microbial diversity. Furthermore, distance metrics indicate that submerged sediments are more homogeneous while the seco region exhibits greater variability between locations. Finally, we found that the most abundant microbial families in the sediments are associated with nutrient cycling consistent with the essential role of the microbiome in maintaining the health of the mangrove ecology.