Understanding response of microbial communities to saltwater intrusion through microcosms

Abstract

A central pursuit of microbial ecology is to accurately describe and explain the shifts in microbial community composition and function that occur in response to environmental changes. This goal requires a thorough understanding of the individual responses of different species and of the processes guiding the assembly of microbial populations similar in their response traits and corresponding functional traits. These research topics are addressed and synthesized in this Highlights, in four studies applying a trait-based framework to assess how environmental change affected the composition and functional performance of bacterioplankton of natural origin in microcosm experiments. The salinity of many aquatic environments is currently changing, due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. The mechanisms by which salinity influences community assembly, functional redundancy and functional genes involved in nitrogen cycle, and how dispersal modifies community outcome are explored in the four studies. Together, the findings of these case studies demonstrate the feasibility of using novel experiments in combination with integrative analyses of 16S rRNA and meta-‘omic’ data to address ecological questions. This combined approach has the potential to elucidate both the processes contributing to bacterial community assembly and the possible links between the compositional and functional changes that occur under shifting environmental conditions.

The Use of Boosted Regression Trees to Predict the Occurrence and Quantity of Staphylococcus aureus in Recreational Marine Waterways

“…Overall, these findings underscore the potential impact of stormwater on bacterial contamination levels in marine waters and highlight the need for effective stormwater management strategies to mitigate public health risks associated with waterborne pathogens. Freshwater inputs create fluctuations in salinities within estuary environments that affect microbial communities, especially at the marine-freshwater boundaries and in large coastal bays [48][49][50]. According to the Tampa Bay Estuary program (https://tbep.org/ accessed on 8 April 2024), the salinity between the lower and northern regions of the Tampa Bay estuary ranges from 25-38 ppt and 18-32 ppt, respectively, with the lowest salinities seen in Hillsborough Bay (15-30 ppt) (see Figure 1).…”

“…Freshwater inputs create fluctuations in salinities within estuary environments that affect microbial communities, especially at the marine-freshwater boundaries and in large coastal bays [48][49][50]. According to the Tampa Bay Estuary program (https://tbep.org/ accessed on 8 April 2024), the salinity between the lower and northern regions of the Tampa Bay estuary ranges from 25-38 ppt and 18-32 ppt, respectively, with the lowest salinities seen in Hillsborough Bay (15-30 ppt) (see Figure 1).…”

Guided by Microbes: Applying Community Coalescence Principles for Predictive Microbiome Engineering

“…Reentry of the clean WWTP effluent into natural systems should, however, not persist. Natural coalescences, such as saltwater intrusion, show that the community with higher initial diversity does not necessarily prevail ( 20 – 22 ). Consequently, clean effluent with a very low-diversity microbiome does not unquestionably indicate a successful cleanup and reentry; a comprehensive understanding of the particular system is crucial for predicting what communities will prevail or subside once coalesced with other communities.…”