Characteristics of Sediment Bacterial Community in Response to Environmental Impacts in a Sewage Polluted River

Abstract

ABSTRACT Li, J. L.; Lin, S. Y., and Song, Q., 2016. Characteristics of sediment bacterial community in response to environmental impacts in a sewage polluted river. The Jiaolai River is the main source of industrial and irrigation water for its catchment of 3900 km2. Anthropogenic activities have caused heavy pollution of this river, but their impacts on biota have never been evaluated. In this study, molecular techniques were applied to investigate the impacts of environmental pollution on the river. Quantitative PCR revealed that total bacterial abundance ranged from 2.90×107 to 2.12×108 copies/g, with no significant differences among sampling sites or seasons. Bacterial abundance and pore water ammonium concentration were negatively correlated. Cluster analysis revealed that bacterial communities were mainly distributed into groups corresponding to nitrate concentration. Two clone libraries were constructed to compare the bacterial composition of samples with high (J308) and moderate (J304) nitrate imp...