Benthic Biofilm Bacterial Communities and Their Linkage with Water-Soluble Organic Matter in Effluent Receivers

Longfei Wang, Yutao Wang, Yi Li, Wenlong Zhang, Huanjun Zhang, Lihua Niu and Nuzahat Habibul
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Longfei Wang: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Yutao Wang: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Yi Li: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Wenlong Zhang: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Huanjun Zhang: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Lihua Niu: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Nuzahat Habibul: College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xinjiang Normal University, Urumqi 830054, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 4, 1-19

Abstract: Benthic biofilms are pioneering microbial aggregates responding to effluent discharge from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). However, knowledge of the characteristics and linkage of bacterial communities and water-soluble organic matter (WSOM) of benthic biofilms in effluent-receiving rivers remains unknown. Here, we investigated the quality of WSOM and the evolution of bacterial communities in benthic biofilm to evaluate the ecological impacts of effluent discharge on a representative receiving water. Tryptophan-like proteins showed an increased proportion in biofilms collected from the discharge area and downstream from the WWTP, especially in summer. Biofilm WSOM showed weak humic character and strong autochthonous components, and species turnover was proven to be the main factor governing biofilm bacteria community diversity patterns. The bacterial community alpha diversity, interspecies interaction, biological index, and humification index were signally altered in the biofilms from the discharge area, while the values were more similar in biofilms collected upstream and downstream from the WWTP, indicating that both biofilm bacterial communities and WSOM characters have resilience capacities. Although effluent discharge simplified the network pattern of the biofilm bacterial community, its metabolic functional abundance was basically stable. The functional abundance of carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid metabolism in the discharge area increased, and the key modules in the non-random co-occurrence network also verified the important ecological role of carbon metabolism in the effluent-receiving river. The study sheds light on how benthic biofilms respond to effluent discharge from both ecological and material points of view, providing new insights on the feasibility of utilizing benthic biofilms as robust indicators reflecting river ecological health.

Keywords: biofilm resilience; water-soluble organic matter; microbial community; co-occurrence network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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