Journal
WATER
Volume 14, Issue 12, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/w14121948
Keywords
microbial communities; alpha diversity; freshwater sediments; Phragmites australis; pollution
Categories
Funding
- Erich-Ritter Foundation
- Herzog-Sellenberg Foundation (German Stifterverband) within the project SustainableWaterManagement andWetland Restoration of Settlements of Continental-Arid Central Asia (SuWaRest) [T122/20076/2010kg]
- Open Access Publishing Fund of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study investigates the microbial diversity of water pollution in Zhangye City to assess environmental exposure and potential threats to human health. The findings suggest that environmental factors and pollutant concentrations affect microbial diversity, highlighting the importance of microbial communities as indicators for ecological status diagnosis.
The city of Zhangye (Gansu Region, China) has been subjected to several changes related to the development of new profitable human activities. Unfortunately, this growth has led to a general decrease in water quality due to the release of several toxic wastes and pollutants (e.g., heavy metals) into the Heihe River. In order to assess the environmental exposure and the potential threat to human health, microbiological diversity for the monitoring of water pollution by biotic and abiotic impact factors was investigated. In particular, we analysed samples collected on different sites using 454 pyrotag sequencing of the 16S ribosomal genes. Then, we focused on alpha-diversity indices to test the hypothesis that communities featuring lower diversity show higher resistance to the disturbance events. The findings report that a wide range of environmental factors such as pH, nutrients and chemicals (heavy metals (HMs)), affected microbial diversity by stimulating mutualistic relationships among bacteria. Furthermore, a selection in bacterial taxa related to the different concentrations of polluting compounds was highlighted. Supporting the hypothesis, our investigation highlights the importance of microbial communities as sentinels for ecological status diagnosis.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available