Comparison of bacterioplankton communities in three mariculture ponds farming different commercial animals in subtropical Chinese coast

In order to explore the responses of the bacterioplankton community to different types of aquaculture environments, three mariculture ponds comprised of groupers (Epinephelus diacanthus, ED), prawns (Penaeus vannamei, PV), and abalone (Haliotis diversicolor supertexta, HDS) in southeast, coastal China were investigated. The free-living bacterial diversity was analyzed through the construction of 16S rDNA clone library. A total of 203 16S rDNA sequences from three clone libraries were classified into 118 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), of which 51, 31, and 42 OTUs were distributed in the ED, PV, and HDS pond, respectively, with Bacteroidetes (30.6%), Actinobacteria (55.2%), and Cyanobacteria (32.8%) as the dominant division in the respective ponds. Meanwhile, each pond occupied some unique OTUs that were affiliated with uncommon (sub-)phyla, such as candidate OP11 division, Acidobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria, Planctomycetes, and Verrucomicrobia. Bacterial diversity in the ED pond was the richest, followed by the HDS and the PV pond. OTUs of 61.9% and 94.9% have less than 90% and 97% similarity to their nearest neighbors in public databases, respectively. All OTUs were grouped into 67 clusters, covering 11 (sub-)phyla. The OTUs only from single pond distributed in 53 clusters (79.1%), the OTUs shared by two ponds were affiliated with 14 clusters (20.9%), and none of clusters was formed by the OTUs which commonly originated from the three pond libraries, suggesting that the composition of bacterial populations in these ponds were significantly different. These results indicate that the aquatic environment created by different mariculture animals may foster very special and complex bacterial communities. Handling editor: David Philip Hamilton