Journal Article

Seasonal Variations and Resilience of Bacterial Communities in a Sewage Polluted Urban River

Brion, Natacha, Ouattara, Nouho Koffi, İnceoğlu, Özgül, Servais, Pierre, Verbanck, Michel A., Anzil, Adriana, García-Armisen, Tamara

2014

Overview

The Zenne River in Brussels (Belgium) and effluents of the two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) of Brussels were chosen to assess the impact of disturbance on bacterial community composition (BCC) of an urban river. Organic matters, nutrients load and oxygen concentration fluctuated highly along the river and over time because of WWTPs discharge. Tag pyrosequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA genes revealed the significant effect of seasonality on the richness, the bacterial diversity (Shannon index) and BCC. The major grouping: -winter/fall samples versus spring/summer samples- could be associated with fluctuations of in situ bacterial activities (dissolved and particulate organic carbon biodegradation associated with oxygen consumption and N transformation). BCC of the samples collected upstream from the WWTPs discharge were significantly different from BCC of downstream samples and WWTPs effluents, while no significant difference was found between BCC of WWTPs effluents and the downstream samples as revealed by ANOSIM. Analysis per season showed that allochthonous bacteria brought by WWTPs effluents triggered the changes in community composition, eventually followed by rapid post-disturbance return to the original composition as observed in April (resilience), whereas community composition remained altered after the perturbation by WWTPs effluents in the other seasons.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Analysis / Bacteria / Bacteria - classification / Bacteria - drug effects / Bacteria - genetics / Bacteria - growth & development / Belgium / Biodegradation / Biogeochemistry / Biology and Life Sciences / Community composition / Composition / Discharge / Disturbance / DNA, Bacterial - analysis / Earth Sciences / Ecology and Environmental Sciences / Ecosystems / Effluents / Engineering and Technology / Genetic transformation / Inland water pollution / Microorganisms / Nutrients / Organic carbon / Organic loading / Oxygen / Oxygen consumption / Particulate organic carbon / Pollution load / Resilience / River ecology / Rivers / Rivers - chemistry / Rivers - microbiology / RNA / RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - genetics / rRNA 16S / Seasonal variations / Seasons / Sewage / Sewage - microbiology / Sewage treatment / Stream flow / Studies / Transformation / Urban Population / Waste Water - microbiology / Wastewater / Wastewater disposal / Wastewater treatment / Wastewater treatment plants / Water Pollutants, Chemical - pharmacology / Water pollution / Water Purification / Water treatment / Water treatment plants