Potential Impact of Coastal Development on Nearshore Bacterial Diversity, Southwest Puerto Rico

Gary E. Schultz Jr.; Jeffrey J. Kovatch; Heidi Hertler

Potential Impact of Coastal Development on Nearshore Bacterial Diversity, Southwest Puerto Rico

Gary E. Schultz Jr.^1,*, Jeffrey J. Kovatch^1,†, and Heidi Hertler^2,3

¹Department of Biological Sciences, Marshall University, Huntington, WV 25755, USA. ^†Deceased.
²Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Center for Environmental Education, Conservation and Research, San German, PR 00683, USA. ³Current address - School for Field Studies, Center for Marine Resource Studies, 1 West Street, South Caicos, Turks and Caicos Islands. *Corresponding author.

Caribbean Naturalist, No. 42 (2017)

Abstract
The biodiversities of nearshore bacterial communities along a coastline development gradient were examined using pyrosequencing and classical ecological diversity indices. Relative abundance of 16S rRNA gene sequences was determined from 9 sampling stations along a nearshore 3-km transect in southwest Puerto Rico that has both anthropogenically developed and undeveloped areas. Cyanobacteria and Proteobacteria were the numerically dominant phyla, and the relative abundance of either phylum was inversely proportional to the other along the transect. Land development appeared to be related to diversity, with lower diversities observed at the developed stations. Multidimensional scaling based on Bray-Curtis similarities indicated partial recovery of the relatively pristine community a short distance beyond the developed region. This study shows that the bacterial diversity of a nearshore marine environment may be influenced by proximity to coastal development and lays the foundation for future studies into the diversity of microbial assemblages in coastal areas.

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