Large-scale differences in diversity and functional adaptations of prokaryotic communities from conserved and anthropogenically impacted mangrove sediments in a tropical estuary

PeerJ

article

Carolina O. De Santana¹  Pieter Spealman²  Vania Melo³  David Gresham²  Taise de Jesus⁴  Eddy Oliveira⁴  Fabio Alexandre Chinalia¹ 

[1] Geosciences Institute, Federal University of Bahia;Department of Biology, New York University;Department of Biology, Federal University of Ceará;Department of Biology, State University of Feira de Santana

关键词: Mangrove;    Urbanization;    Sediment microbiome;    Environmental impact;    Tropical estuary;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.12229

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Mangroves are tropical ecosystems with strategic importance for climate change mitigation on local and global scales. They are also under considerable threat due to fragmentation degradation and urbanization. However, a complete understanding of how anthropogenic actions can affect microbial biodiversity and functional adaptations is still lacking. In this study, we carried out 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis using sediment samples from two distinct mangrove areas located within the Serinhaém Estuary, Brazil. The first sampling area was located around the urban area of Ituberá, impacted by domestic sewage and urban runoff, while the second was an environmentally conserved site. Our results show significant changes in the structure of the communities between impacted and conserved sites. Biodiversity, along with functional potentials for the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur, were significantly increased in the urban area. We found that the environmental factors of organic matter, temperature and copper were significantly correlated with the observed shifts in the communities. Contributions of specific taxa to the functional potentials were negatively correlated with biodiversity, such that fewer numbers of taxa in the conserved area contributed to the majority of the metabolic potential. The results suggest that the contamination by urban runoff may have generated a different environment that led to the extinction of some taxa observed at the conserved site. In their place we found that the impacted site is enriched in prokaryotic families that are known human and animal pathogens, a clear negative effect of the urbanization process.

【 授权许可】

CC BY