Abstract
Extreme weather events are increasing pressure on coastal ecosystems and the biogeochemical services they sustain, but the factors shaping microbial resistance and recovery after typhoons remain unclear. Here we tracked bacterioplankton community dynamics across the Jinjiang River–Quanzhou Bay estuary before and after Typhoon Haikui and analysed seven additional storm-event datasets. Preexisting salinity gradients were strongly associated with poststorm community stability. Low-salinity riverine communities showed a prolonged compositional shift, expansion of fast-growing opportunistic taxa, and reduced co-occurrence network complexity. In contrast, high-salinity bay communities showed greater compositional resistance and faster apparent recovery, patterns consistent with stronger environmental filtering, rare-taxon responses, and more connected co-occurrence networks. A meta-analysis of additional storm-event datasets supported the broader relevance of this pattern. Together, these findings suggest that poststorm microbial recovery is temporally delayed and spatially heterogeneous, and that salinity gradients may help identify relatively stable and vulnerable zones in coastal ecosystems.
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Funding
N.J. discloses support for the research of this work from the Ocean Negative Carbon Emissions (ONCE) Program and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 42188102]. Y.M. discloses support for the research of this work from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 42376148] and the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province [grant number 2024J01059]. X.D. and X.T. declare no additional relevant funding.
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Du, X., Tong, X., Meng, Y. et al. Salinity gradients shape the resilience of estuarine microbial ecosystems to extreme weather events.
Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03737-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03737-z
Source: Ecology - nature.com
