Salinity Gradients Determine the Resilience of Estuarine Microbial Ecosystems to Extreme Weather Events

Salinity Gradients Determine the Resilience of Estuarine Microbial Ecosystems to Extreme Weather Events | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Salinity Gradients Determine the Resilience of Estuarine Microbial Ecosystems to Extreme Weather Events Yabing Meng, Xin Du, Xingyu Tong, Nianzhi Jiao This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8314568/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Extreme weather events, exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change, exert increasing pressure on coastal ecosystems and the biogeochemical services they sustain. However, the mechanisms governing the full cycle of ecosystem stability — encompassing both resistance to and resilience from large-scale disturbances — remain inadequately understood. Here, by tracking bacterioplankton community dynamics across a subtropical estuary through a complete disturbance-recovery cycle following Typhoon Haikui, we demonstrate that the pre-existing salinity gradient serves as a master regulator of ecosystem stability. We observed fundamentally divergent ecological trajectories contingent on baseline salinity: low-salinity riverine communities experienced a prolonged state shift, characterized by the proliferation of opportunistic r-strategists and a collapse in co-occurrence network complexity, indicative of stochastic community assembly. In contrast, high-salinity bay communities exhibited robust resistance, maintaining a K-strategist-dominated structure through deterministic environmental filtering. This stability was underpinned by the activation of a resilient rare biosphere, which fortified network connectivity and provided functional redundancy. A meta-analysis of seven additional storm events corroborates the universality of this pattern. Our findings reveal a significant temporal decoupling, whereby biological recovery substantially lags behind the normalization of the physicochemical environment, establishing a predictive framework for identifying resilience anchors and vulnerability hotspots in coastal zones. Earth and environmental sciences/Ecology/Microbial ecology Earth and environmental sciences/Natural hazards Extreme weather events Coastal ecosystem stability Microbial resistance and resilience Ecological insurance hypothesis Disturbance ecology Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files TyphoonSupplementaryDataCEE.xlsx Typhoon-Supplementary Data-CEE TyphoonSupplementaryinformationCEE.pdf Salinity Gradients Determine the Resilience of Estuarine Microbial Ecosystems to Extreme Weather Events Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8314568","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":557570497,"identity":"7088f37f-fd11-400f-8b18-0cd389defeb4","order_by":0,"name":"Yabing 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