Seasonal and Zonal Succession of Bacterial Communities in North Sea Salt Marsh Sediments.

Benthic microbial communities of intertidal zones perform important biogeochemical processes and provide accessible nutrients for higher organisms. To unravel the ecosystem services of salt marsh microbial communities, we analyzed bacterial diversity and metabolic potential along the land-sea transition zone on seasonal scales on the German North Sea Island of Spiekeroog. Analysis of bacterial community was based on amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA genes and -transcripts.

Impact of sea level change on coastal soil organic matter, priming effects and prokaryotic community assembly.

Salt marshes are coastal areas storing high amounts of soil organic matter (SOM) while simultaneously being prone to tidal changes. Here, SOM-decomposition and accompanied priming effects (PE), which describe interactions between labile and old SOM, were studied under controlled flooding conditions. Soil samples from two Wadden Sea salt marsh zones, pioneer (Pio), flooded two times/day, and lower salt marsh (Low), flooded ∼eight times/month, were measured for 56 days concerning CO2-efflux and prokaryotic community shifts during three different inundation-treatments: total-drained (Drained), all-time-flooded (Waterlogged) or temporal-flooding (Tidal).