Abstract
Understanding the effects of pollution on ecological communities and the underlying mechanisms that drive them will helpful for selecting a method to mediate polluted ecosystems. Quantifying the relative importance of deterministic and stochastic processes is a very important issue in ecology. However, little is known about their effects on the succession of microbial communities in different pollution levels rural ponds. Also, the processes that govern bacterial communities in polluted ponds are poorly understood. In this study, the microbial communities in water and sediment from the ponds were investigated by using the 16S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing technology. Meanwhile, we used null model analyses based on a taxonomic and phylogenetic metrics approach to test the microbial community assembly processes. Pollution levels were found to significantly alter the community composition and diversity of bacteria. In the sediment samples, the bacterial diversity indices decreased with increasing pollutant levels. Between-community analysis revealed that community assembly processes among water and sediment samples stochastic ratio both gradually decreased with the increased pollution levels, indicating a potential deterministic environmental filtering that is elicited by pollution. Our results identified assemblage drivers of bacterial community is important for improving the efficacies of ecological evaluation and remediation for contaminated freshwater systems.
Highlights
Freshwater ecosystems play a key role in the efflux of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and the storage of organic carbon in sediments [1,2]
According to the environmental quality of V standards for surface water issued by Chinese government in 2002 (GB3838-2002) [44], the concentration of NH3-N, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) in water samples seriously exceeded the standard limit (Table 2)
NH3-N, TP, and TN was significantly lower in the mild ponds compared with moderate and severe ponds, and was significantly lower in the moderate ponds compared with severe ponds
Summary
Freshwater ecosystems play a key role in the efflux of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and the storage of organic carbon in sediments [1,2]. Ponds are defined as lentic water bodies < 2 ha in the United Kingdom and most of Europe [3]. Ponds are among the most biodiverse and ecologically important freshwater habitats, which could provide habitats to endangered wetland plants, invertebrates, and amphibians. Ponds provide flood alleviation, rainfall interception, and a supply of irrigation water [4,5,6]. With the development of livestock breeding, livestock wastewater seriously contaminated a large number of rural ponds and threatened human health and ecosystem security, which was considered to be the third largest water pollution source after industrial and domestic pollution [7]. In rural areas, most livestock wastewater is discharged directly into ponds without treatment, which could cause epidemics and is harmful to human health
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