Journal Article

Unraveling the response of water quality and microbial community to lake water backflowing in one typical estuary of Lake Taihu, China

Wei, Lecheng, Zhang, Yajie, Zhang, Ye, Xu, Xiangyang, Zhu, Liang

2023

Overview

To investigate the effect of lake water backflowing on the aquatic ecosystem in the estuary, surface water samples in the backflowing and unbackflowing areas were collected from one typical estuary of Lake Taihu, Xitiaoxi River. 16S rRNA sequencing and redundancy analysis were conducted to quantitatively elucidate the correlation between microbial community and water quality parameters. Results indicated lake water backflowing would affect the relative distribution of nitrogen species and increase the concentration of total nitrogen (TN) and nitrate, especially in the outlets of municipal sewage and agricultural drainage. For backflowing areas, more frequent water exchange could lower the seasonal fluctuation of the abundance and diversity of microbial community. RDA results showed crucial water quality parameters that greatly influence bacterial community were total organic carbon (TOC), total dissolved solids (TDS), salinity (SAL), ammonia, nitrate, TN for backflowing areas, and TOC, TDS, SAL, ammonia, TN without nitrate for unbackflowing areas. Verrucomicrobia, Proteobacteria, Microcystis , and Arcobacter were dominant with 27.7%, 15.7%, 30.5%, and 25.7% contribution to the overall water quality in backflowing areas. Chloroflexi, Verrucomicrobia, Flavobacterium , and Nostocaceae were dominant with 25.0%, 18.4%, 22.3%, and 11.4% contribution to the overall water quality in unbackflowing areas. And lake water backflowing might mainly affect the amino acid and carbohydrate metabolism based on the metabolism function prediction. A better understanding of the spatiotemporal changes in water quality parameters and microbial community was obtained from this research to comprehensively assess the effect of lake water backflowing on the estuarine ecosystem.

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Amino acids / Ammonia / Ammonia - analysis / Aquatic ecosystems / Arcobacter / Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution / bacterial communities / Brackishwater environment / Carbohydrate metabolism / Carbohydrates / China / Chloroflexi / Dissolved solids / drainage / Earth and Environmental Science / Ecology / Ecotoxicology / Environment / Environmental Management / Environmental monitoring / Environmental Monitoring - methods / Environmental science / Estuaries / Estuarine dynamics / Estuarine ecosystems / Flavobacterium / Geographical distribution / Lake water / Lakes / Lakes - chemistry / Metabolism / Microbiomes / Microbiota / Microcystis / Microorganisms / Monitoring/Environmental Analysis / Municipal wastes / Municipal wastewater / Nitrates / Nitrates - analysis / Nitrogen / Nitrogen - analysis / Nostocaceae / Organic carbon / Organic Chemicals - analysis / Outlets / Parameters / prediction / Redundancy / rivers / RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / rRNA 16S / Salinity / Seasonal variations / Sewage / species / Surface water / Total dissolved solids / total nitrogen / Total organic carbon / Verrucomicrobia / Water analysis / Water exchange / Water Quality / Water sampling