Impact of polyculture ecosystems of Ctenopharyngodon idellus with Eriocheir sinensis on bacterial communities in the sediments of Dongping Lake in China: Focus on optimization of polyculture modes

This study investigated the influence of polyculture ecosystems of grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus) and Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis) on the bacterial community of sediments in the Lake Dongping in China, using the Illumina HiSeq Sequencing approach. The bacterial community diversity was reduced to different extent due to the polyculture of animals. The bacterial community composition changed significantly among the ecosystems of control (without any animals cultured), G1C1 (with the highest animal biomass: C. idellus, 2 ind/m²; E. sinensis, 1 ind/m²) and G2C2 (with the lowest biomass: C. idellus, 1 ind/m²; E. sinensis, 0.5 ind/m²). Relative abundance increase for sulphide‐oxidizing bacteria and decrease for sulphate‐reducing bacteria were detected with more quantities of fish–crab cultured in ecosystems. Variations in the concentration of sediment sulphate mainly accounted for the shifts of both the bacterial diversity and community composition. Lastly, G2C2 was recommended as the optimal polyculture ecosystem that could be used in the Lake. The results suggested negative impacts of polyculture ecosystems of C. idellus with E. sinensis on the bacterial diversity but positive impacts on the community composition and indicated the role of total biomass of animas in shaping the bacterial community in the sediments of lake ecosystems.