Effects of Water Loss Stress under Tidal Effects on the Epiphytic Bacterial Community of Sargassum thunbergii in the Intertidal Zone

Abstract

Periodic water loss caused by the tide is an important environmental factor that is faced by intertidal macroalgae, but the impact of periodic water loss on the epiphytic bacterial communities associated with macroalgae is still unknown. Through this study, we found that the diversity, the relative abundance of dominant taxa, the indicator species, and the abundance of the predicted functional genes in the epiphytic bacteria on S. thunbergii changed with the time of water loss.