BioProject

Microbial communities within sediments regulate biogeochemical cycling throughout aquatic ecosystems. More...

Microbial communities within sediments regulate biogeochemical cycling throughout aquatic ecosystems. However, microbial community structure can become influenced through heavy metal toxicity, often caused by anthropogenic disturbance. Toxicity of heavy metals can become reduced over time through mineralization and/or sorption of previously bioavailable metal ions. As consequence, it is anticipated that microbial communities should exhibit a more pronounced observable response to available metal concentrations within the local environment. In this study, lake sediments collected from two heavy metal impacted geographical regions (Poyang Lake, China and sites adjacent to the Muskegon Watershed, MI, USA) were analyzed for microbial community structure using high-throughput sequencing technology. Total and available metal concentrations were also investigated in order to elucidate the relative strengths each fraction exerted on local sediment microbial communities. Results indicate a weak relationship of metal influence on microbial community diversity, but strong positive and negative correlations of available heavy metals with specific taxonomic groups and OTUs of bacteria and archaea. This shows the importance of analyzing available metals when examining the impact of this disturbance on microbial community structure within aquatic sediments. Less...