ERP015825 PRJEB14197 ena-STUDY-LEIBNIZ INSTITUTE FOR BALTIC SEA RESEARCH-31-05-2016-13:43:20:276-19 Baltic Sea transplant experiment The Baltic Sea is characterized by salinity gradients, providing an ideal system for examining how salinity governs microbial biodiversity and microbially-mediated processes. Little is known about how locally adapted bacteria cope with changes in salinity and which ecological strategy they employ in response to such change. We have performed a full-factorial transplant experiment with bacterial communities originating from three salinity regimes of the Baltic Sea (freshwater, brackish, marine), which were reciprocally incubated under each other’s environmental conditions. transplant The Baltic Sea is characterized by salinity gradients, providing an ideal system for examining how salinity governs microbial biodiversity and microbially-mediated processes. Little is known about how locally adapted bacteria cope with changes in salinity and which ecological strategy they employ in response to such change. We have performed a full-factorial transplant experiment with bacterial communities originating from three salinity regimes of the Baltic Sea (freshwater, brackish, marine), which were reciprocally incubated under each other’s environmental conditions.