Bacterial Community Shifts Driven by Nitrogen Pollution in River Sediments of a Highly Urbanized City

Xianbiao Lin, Dengzhou Gao, Kaijun Lu and Xiaofei Li
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Xianbiao Lin: Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Matter Cycles, School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China
Dengzhou Gao: School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
Kaijun Lu: The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute, 750 Channel View Drive, Port Aransas, TX 78373, USA
Xiaofei Li: School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 20, 1-15

Abstract: Effects of nitrogen pollution on bacterial community shifts in river sediments remain barely understood. Here, we investigated the bacterial communities in sediments of urban and suburban rivers in a highly urbanized city, Shanghai. Sediment nitrate (NO 3 − ) and ammonia (NH 4 + ) were highly accumulated in urban river. Operation Taxonomic Units (OTUs), Abundance-based Coverage Estimators (ACEs) and Chao 1 estimator in urban rivers were slightly lower than those in suburban rivers, while Shannon and Simpson indices were higher in urban rivers than those in suburban rivers. Proteobacteria , Firmicutes , and Bacteroidetes were the dominant bacterial phylum communities, accounting for 68.5–84.9% of all communities. In particular, the relative abundances of Firmicutes and Nitrospirae were significantly higher in suburban rivers than in urban rivers, while relative abundances of Bacteroidetes, Verrucomicrobia, and Spirochaetes were significantly lower in suburban rivers than in urban rivers. NH 4 + was significantly and negatively correlated with abundances of Firmicutes , Nitrospirae , and Actinobacteria . Importantly, the significant and negative effects of sediment NH 4 + on bacterial richness and diversity suggested that nitrogen pollution likely contribute to the decrease in the bacterial richness and diversity. The results highlight that nitrogen enrichment could drive the shifts of bacterial abundance and diversity in the urban river sediments where are strongly influenced by human activities under the rapid urbanization stress.

Keywords: bacterial community; nitrogen pollution; river sediment; urbanization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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