Abstract
Saline lakes are subject to numerous environmental impacts related to human activities, changing the chemical and biological natural conditions of the ecosystem. Sustainable development depends on the conservation of such delicate saline ecosystems, which may hold distinctive biodiversity. Pollution is one of the major threats to surface water bodies, for example by increasing nutrient contents and organic pollutants, including endocrine disrupting chemicals. Microbially mediated redox processes exert a fundamental control on nutrient turnover and contaminant removal. This study examines the influence of land use on the distribution of endocrine disrupting chemicals as well as on the microbial community composition in lacustrine sediments from Pétrola saline Lake (SE Spain). The lake is impacted by anthropogenic activities (agriculture, farming, mining and urban wastewater spills). Applying chemical and molecular tools (sequencing of 16S rRNA gene) showed a clear influence of land use on the chemistry and bacterial abundance of the lake sediments. The sampling points closer to wastewater outflows and mining ponds (2635, 2643 and 2650) showed fewer numbers and types of endocrine disrupting chemicals as well as a smaller number of families in the microbial community. These findings improve our understanding of how land use affects both water chemistry and the abundance of organisms responsible for biogeochemical cycles.
Highlights
The Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations (UN) encourage the international community to safeguard ecosystems by 2030 due to their close relation with the conservation of biodiversity and water resources, and human health [1]
Based on to the Endocrine Database Exchanged (TEDX) and Database of Endocrine-Disrupting. Chemicals and Their Toxicity Profile (DEDuCT), a total of 34 endocrine-disrupting chemicals were detected in the aquifer–saline system of Pétrola Lake
They can be grouped into biocides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), body care products and abuse drugs
Summary
The Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations (UN) encourage the international community to safeguard ecosystems by 2030 due to their close relation with the conservation of biodiversity and water resources, and human health [1]. In agreement with these goals, the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the European Green Deal communication require European Union member states to reach good environmental status of their aquatic ecosystems. One of the major risks for water bodies and ecosystem sustainability involve emerging pollutants [2,3] Facing this challenge calls for evaluating the distribution and fate of pollutants as well as the bacterial community structure (composition). The relative abundance and distribution of bacteria can be an indicator for the attenuation potential of pollutants
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