Analysis On The Impact of Human-Induced Pollutants On River Microbiology

Abstract

In recent decades, water quality and contaminant concentrations have been tightly regulated by relevant laws and monitoring. However, detailed microbial composition in different environments and their interactions with human activities has yet to be fully characterized. This paper shows how different environments, including city environments and highways, can affect the properties of water bodies closely associated with them geographically. Two pairs of locations along Schuylkill and Wissahickon river were sampled. Through 16s rRNA metagenomic diversity sequencing and a functional gene prediction approach, the taxonomic and predicted gene profiles of
 samples from various locations were elucidated. Through comparative study of these samples, the effect of human
 activity on the river between the locations were evaluated. In the Wissahickon river, metagenome analysis
 indicates that human-induced pollutants potentially fostered the growth of bacteria that are able to utilize them, but
 suggests no increment of genes’ abundance that resist their damaging effects, such as heavy metals exporting
 ATPase, and various antibiotic resistance genes. In the Schuylkill river, the analysis indicates that the growth of the
 aforementioned bacteria is insignificant, and the resistance genes were predicted to decrease in the urban area
 where it was anticipated to receive more influence from human activities, rendering the result inconclusive. We
 anticipate that this study will become the starting point for future research on microbial populations in water bodies
 so that the dynamics of how human activities influence river microbiology can be determined more clearly.