Free-living and particle-attached bacterial community composition, assembly processes and determinants across spatiotemporal scales in a macrotidal temperate estuary

Bacteria play an important role in biogeochemical cycles as they transform and remineralize organic matter. Particles are notable hotspots of activity, hosting particle-attached (PA) communities that can differ largely from their free-living (FL) counterparts. However, long-standing questions remain concerning bacterial community assembly processes and driving factors. This study investigated the FL and PA community compositions and determinants within the Aulne estuary and the Bay of Brest coastal waters (France). Our results revealed that the FL and PA community compositions greatly varied with salinity and season, explaining a larger part of the variance than the sampling fraction. Both the FL and PA communities were driven by deterministic assembly processes and impacted by similar factors. The FL-PA dissimilarity varied across space and time. It decreased in the estuarine stations compared to the freshwater and marine ends, and in summer. Interestingly, a significant proportion of the FL and PA communities' β-diversity and dissimilarity was explained by cohesion, measuring the degree of taxa co-occurrence. This suggested the importance of co-occurrence patterns in shaping the FL and PA community compositions. Our results shed light on the factors influencing estuarine bacterial communities and provide a first step toward understanding their biogeochemical impacts.