Resilience of planktonic bacterial community structure in response to short-term weather deterioration during the growing season in an alpine lake

The disturbing effect of a short-term cooling period during summer on planktonic bacterial community structure of an alpine lake was investigated using 16S rDNA pyrosequencing. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes constituted the most abundant phyla. During the sampling period (from July to August 2010), a sudden cooling period with high precipitation occurred, as indicated by a decrease in conductivity, calcium, and dissolved organic carbon concentration resulting from increased runoff. The relative abundance of Actinobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, and Cyanobacteria decreased during this short-term cooling period. Instead, a rapid shift from Betaproteobacteria to Gammaproteobacteria occurred, which was mainly caused by an increase of Acinetobacter rhizosphaerae. Soon after the short-term cooling period, warmer weather conditions got re-established and Betaproteobacteria recovered and became again dominant. Non-metric multi-dimensional scaling analysis and Venn diagrams revealed a planktonic bacterial community composition with high similarity at the beginning and the end of the growing season. Air temperature and precipitation were significantly correlated with the observed variation in operational taxonomic unit (OTU) relative abundance. It is concluded that, in response to the short-term cooling period, a distinct planktonic bacterial OTU community developed. It rapidly diminished, however, as summer conditions became re-established, implying the recovery of the original bacterial community structure.