Strong impact of micropollutants on prokaryotic communities at the horizontal but not vertical scales in a subtropical reservoir, China
Journal
Science of the Total Environment
Journal Volume
721
Date Issued
2020
Author(s)
Abstract
Micropollutants have become of great concern, because of their disrupting effects on the structure and function of microbial communities. However, little is known about the relative importance of trace micropollutants on the aquatic prokaryotic communities as compared to the traditional physico-chemical characteristics, especially at different spatial dimensions. Here, we investigated free-living (FL) and particle-associated (PA) prokaryotic communities in a subtropical water reservoir, China, across seasons at horizontal (surface water) and vertical (depth-profile) scales by using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Our results showed that the shared variances of physico-chemicals and micropollutants explained majority of the spatial variations in prokaryotic communities, suggesting a strong joint effect of the two abiotic categories on reservoir prokaryotic communities. Micropollutants appeared to exert strong independent influence on the core sub-communities (i.e., abundant and wide-spread taxa) than on the satellite (i.e., less abundant and narrow-range taxa) counterparts. The pure effect of micropollutants on both core and satellite sub-communities from FL and PA fractions was ~1.5 folds greater than that of physico-chemical factors at the horizontal scale, whereas an opposite effect was observed at the vertical scale. Moreover, eight micropollutants including anti-fungal agents, antibiotics, bisphenol analogues, stimulant and UV-filter were identified as the major disrupting compounds with strong associations with core taxa of typical freshwater prokaryotes. Altogether, we concluded that the ecological disrupting effects of micropollutants on prokaryotic communities may vary along horizontal and vertical dimensions in freshwater ecosystems. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.
Subjects
Ecological disrupting effects; Horizontal and vertical scales; Micropollutants; Prokaryotic community; Water reservoir
SDGs
Other Subjects
Aquatic organisms; Microorganisms; Reservoirs (water); RNA; Surface waters; Tropics; Water; Ecological disrupting effects; Freshwater ecosystem; Horizontal and vertical scales; Microbial communities; Micropollutants; Physico-chemical factors; Physicochemical characteristics; Prokaryotic community; Ecosystems; surface water; fresh water; RNA 16S; ecotoxicology; microbial community; physicochemical property; pollution effect; reservoir; RNA; spatial variation; trace element; amplicon; aquatic environment; Article; China; environmental impact assessment; environmental monitoring; gene amplification; gene sequence; geography; nonhuman; organism community; physical chemistry; pollutant; polymerase chain reaction; population abundance; priority journal; prokaryote; RNA sequencing; seasonal variation; water sampling; China; microflora; China; Prokaryota; China; Fresh Water; Microbiota; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
Type
journal article