Abstract
River water is a small percentage of the total freshwater on Earth but represents an essential resource for mankind. Microbes in rivers perform essential ecosystem roles including the mineralization of significant quantities of organic matter originating from terrestrial habitats. The Amazon river in particular is famous for its size and importance in the mobilization of both water and carbon out of its enormous basin. Here we present the first metagenomic study on the microbiota of this river. It presents many features in common with the other freshwater metagenome available (Lake Gatun in Panama) and much less similarity with marine samples. Among the microbial taxa found, the cosmopolitan freshwater acI lineage of the actinobacteria was clearly dominant. Group I Crenarchaea and the freshwater sister group of the marine SAR11 clade, LD12, were found alongside more exclusive and well known freshwater taxa such as Polynucleobacter. A metabolism-centric analysis revealed a disproportionate representation of pathways involved in heterotrophic carbon processing, as compared to those found in marine samples. In particular, these river microbes appear to be specialized in taking up and mineralizing allochthonous carbon derived from plant material.
Highlights
River water, around which civilizations flourish, is only a very small percentage (0.006%) of the total freshwater on earth, and a miniscule 0.0002% of the total water in the hydrosphere [1]
The largest dataset from a freshwater metagenome is that of Lake Gatun, a freshwater lake near the Panama Canal that was sampled during the Global Ocean Survey (GOS) [28], and the only freshwater sample in that collection
Concluding Remarks Much less is known about freshwater bacteria than marine ones, or those that impact human health directly
Summary
Around which civilizations flourish, is only a very small percentage (0.006%) of the total freshwater on earth, and a miniscule 0.0002% of the total water in the hydrosphere [1]. Freshwater habitats like rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands, provide invaluable ecosystem services to human populations in the form of drinking water, recreation, and fisheries. They play a previously underestimated but surprisingly important role in the oxidation, storage, and release of terrestrial carbon, thereby affecting global carbon budgets [2,3,4]. The tropical rainforest surrounding the river is an extraordinarily diverse ecosystem, boasting thousands of plant and animal species, many endemic to it, with several regions still untouched by anthropogenic pressure Such a situation may not continue for long since the extent of pristine waters in these regions might be dramatically reduced in the future. We have practically no information on the major microbial species that dominate the Amazon River
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