Structure and diversity of bacterial communities in the water column of three reservoirs in Yun-Gui Plateau, China

Plateau reservoirs are considered vulnerable and sensitive to eutrophication under global warming and land use changes. We investigated the structure, diversity, and gene functions of bacterial communities in three reservoirs in Yun-Gui Plateau. We assumed that the bacterial community structures were different among these three reservoirs due to differences in trophic status. We found there was an insignificant difference in bacterial community structure among these plateau reservoirs, but the varying relative abundance of components in the community. Proteobacteria and Cyanobacteria were the most abundant phyla. Alpha-diversity, as indicated by Simpson, Shannon, and evenness indexes, were similar in the three reservoirs, but richness was different. HX reservoir exhibited the lowest heterogeneity as indicated by the beta-diversity. The gene functions suggested that amino acid metabolism and membrane transport were important and reflected the multiple roles of bacteria in biogeochemical processes. This study provided information about the bacterial community structure in reservoirs of Yun-Gui plateau and analysis of the effects of environmental factors. Bacterial communities show little variation among reservoirs due to exposure to similar environmental conditions and differences in trophic status were not a strong driver of community structure changes.