Influence of suspended mariculture on vertical distribution profiles of bacteria in sediment from Daya Bay, Southern China

Abstract Mariculture is known to contribute to oxygen depletion, pH decline and accumulation of nutrients and organic matter in sediments. However, studies on the bacterial vertical distribution of mariculture area are very limited. The bacterial abundance in the non-culture site (3.8 ± 0.8 × 10 9 copies g −1 ) was significantly higher than that in the three mariculture sites (1.2 ± 0.2 × 10 9 copies g −1 ), and bacterial diversity in the non-culture site was significantly higher than that in fish cage-TF ( p p