Bacterial community composition in costal dunes of the Mediterranean along a gradient from the sea shore to the inland

Sand dunes are unique ecosystems with distinct features which limited the accumulation of biomass. The distance from seashore affects both the physical properties of the sand dunes and the biota living above- and below ground. The goal of the present study was to determine the effects of the distance from shore to inland on soil bacterial community composition during wet and dry season. We studied a chronosequence of sites close to the eastern Mediterranean coast. Bacterial diversity was assessed using directly extracted DNA from soil samples and 16 S ribosomal RNA gene fingerprinting. Our data indicates a significant influence of season and site on bacterial community structure. We showed that during the wet season soil organic matter, pH and salinity strongly influence bacterial community composition, whereas during the dry period bacterial diversity was mainly driven by the shortage of water at all sites. Consequently diversity was lowest during dry season at dunes close to the shore, whereas during the wet season the higher water content and the reduced salinity at the dunes which are more at the inland induced an increase in diversity, which illustrates the pronounced dynamics of microbial communities in soil over a season mainly at inland dunes.