Headwaters are critical reservoirs of microbial diversity for fluvial networks.

Although depth, velocity and channel slope varied significantly ( p < 0.001, n = 34) between tributaries and recipient streams, none of these variables explained the observed shifts in microbial diversity and evenness across confluences. At the scale of the study network, richness, Shannon diversity and Simpson diversity all exhibited a decreasing trend from small to large streams; also, the variability of these indices decreased markedly downstream.

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Core OTUs contributed 81±13% (mean±s.d.) to the total number of reads per sample and their proportion showed an increasing trend with catchment size; accordingly, the contribution of satellite OTUs decreased with catchment size (see the electronic supplementary material, figure S1).

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