Bacterial Community Shifts Driven by Nitrogen Pollution in River Sediments of a Highly Urbanized City

Abstract

Effects of nitrogen pollution on bacterial community shifts in river sediments remain barely understood. Here, we investigated the bacterial communities in sediments of urban and suburban rivers in a highly urbanized city, Shanghai. Sediment nitrate (NO3−) and ammonia (NH4+) were highly accumulated in urban river. Operation Taxonomic Units (OTUs), Abundance-based Coverage Estimators (ACEs) and Chao 1 estimator in urban rivers were slightly lower than those in suburban rivers, while Shannon and Simpson indices were higher in urban rivers than those in suburban rivers. Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes were the dominant bacterial phylum communities, accounting for 68.5–84.9% of all communities. In particular, the relative abundances of Firmicutes and Nitrospirae were significantly higher in suburban rivers than in urban rivers, while relative abundances of Bacteroidetes, Verrucomicrobia, and Spirochaetes were significantly lower in suburban rivers than in urban rivers. NH4+ was significantly and negatively correlated with abundances of Firmicutes, Nitrospirae, and Actinobacteria. Importantly, the significant and negative effects of sediment NH4+ on bacterial richness and diversity suggested that nitrogen pollution likely contribute to the decrease in the bacterial richness and diversity. The results highlight that nitrogen enrichment could drive the shifts of bacterial abundance and diversity in the urban river sediments where are strongly influenced by human activities under the rapid urbanization stress.

Diversity, Functions and Antibiotic Resistance of Sediment Microbial Communities From Lake Geneva Are Driven by the Spatial Distribution of Anthropogenic Contamination

“…In the present study, the Verrucomicrobia phylum was also more represented in the Vidy Bay than in the other sites, in contrast to previous findings ( Haller et al, 2011 ). However, this is in line with other observations where this phylum was more abundant in very urbanized rivers than in suburban rivers ( Lin et al, 2019 ). The urban contamination is also probably responsible for the observed higher relative abundance of members of the Bacteroidetes phylum, which includes bacteria from the human and animal gastrointestinal tract, frequently detected in wastewater, and generally considered as fecal indicators in the environment ( Gomez-Donate et al, 2016 ; Su et al, 2017 ; Niestępski et al, 2020 ).…”

Metagenomic Insights into the Structure of Microbial Communities Involved in Nitrogen Cycling in Two Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA) Ponds

“…Microbial community function is affected by the type of cultured species and diversity that can affect the microbial N decomposition potential by supplying energy and materials (e.g., nutrient waste) to microbes [5]. Water properties such as salinity and pH may favor the growth of certain microbes, showing differences in N use efficiency [32,51].…”

“…[3,4]. Shrimp farming has been the fastest-growing sector of seawater aquaculture and has contributed to the supply of sufficient high-quality protein and improving economic benefits [5]. Given the high abundance, ubiquity, and important functions of microbes in aquaculture ecosystems, it is important to determine the main drivers of microbial patterns in these ecosystems.…”

“…The shrimp industry has experienced improvements and innovations, leading to many new farming modes, among which integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA) including shrimp is the mode that has developed most rapidly along the northern and central coasts of China [5,10]. Shrimp IMTA is based on the multilevel resource utilization principle, according to which species from different trophic levels are introduced into shrimp ponds to create man-made ecosystems [11].…”

Effect of Aquaculture Reclamation on Sediment Nitrates Reduction Processes in Mangrove Wetland

“…Nitrogen (N) pollution has become increasingly aggravated in global estuarine and coastal ecosystems, in part from increased N inputs from anthropogenic activities [1][2][3][4]. Human activities, especially sewage discharge, agricultural fertilization, and industrial wastewater, have caused a series of environmental problems in estuarine and coastal regions [4][5][6], such as coastal eutrophication globally (McCrackin et al, 2017), increased harmful algal blooms [7], seasonal hypoxia [8], and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emission [9], further tipping the balance of N biogeochemical cycles severely.…”