Assembly mechanisms and successional patterns of sediment bacterial communities along a riverine wetland restoration chronosequence.

Sediment bacterial communities in riverine wetlands shift from stochastic to deterministic assembly, with network modularity increasing over 8 years of restoration.

• Why it matters: Understanding microbial assembly processes is crucial for evaluating wetland restoration success, yet microbial recovery trajectories remain poorly characterized, limiting effective management.
• What they did: The study analyzed sediment bacterial communities at 2, 4, and 8 years of restoration using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, null models, and co-occurrence network analyses to assess assembly mechanisms and community structure.
• The result: Findings show a transition from high stochasticity with dispersal limitation at 2 years to deterministic dominance, especially homogeneous selection, and increased network modularity by 8 years, indicating ecosystem maturation and functional stabilization.