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Functional Characteristics of Bacterial Communities in Periphyton Colonized in Tampa Bay Estuaries Receiving Runoff from Different Landscapes
Citation:
James, J., K. Houghton, S. Friedman, R. Devereux, AND F. Genthner. Functional Characteristics of Bacterial Communities in Periphyton Colonized in Tampa Bay Estuaries Receiving Runoff from Different Landscapes. American Society for Microbiology General Meeting, New Orleans, LA, May 30 - June 02, 2015.
Impact/Purpose:
?Sharing results with fellow researchers investigating microbial ecology and nutrient response
Description:
Periphyton (algae, microorganisms, diatoms, and the matrix they construct) accumulate on surfaces in aquatic ecosystems and have been used as ecological indicators because their characteristics are sensitive to changes in physical and chemical water quality parameters. Diatom community composition can be interpreted via diatom-based indices that reflect known diatom responses to water quality. The widespread use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) of DNA allows for the investigation of the communities of bacteria, archaea, and other microorganisms (beyond diatoms) in the periphyton. Periphyton from watersheds near Tampa Bay, Florida, were colonized on plates for ten days at three sites for each of three nominal landscape types (undeveloped or natural, agricultural, and urban), under the assumption sites influenced by the different landscapes experienced different anthropogenic nutrient inputs. Environmental parameters were measured for all nine sites and water was collected for physiochemical metrics. Genomic DNA was extracted from plates and fragment metagenomes were sequenced using NGS. The functional genes from the metagenomes were annotated in MG-RAST using SEED Subsystems annotation at levels 1, 2, and 3. Relationships between environmental parameters and subsystem functional gene abundances were explored with Primer-E v6. With CLUSTER analysis, samples at all three levels grouped into similar clusters; five clusters for levels two and three, while level one had six clusters. Using BEST in Primer-E v6, the clustering of the samples at all three levels can best be explained by dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN). The available physiochemical metrics point to DIN as the most important driver of the functional potential of the microbial communities in the studied watersheds. Since the correlation is not especially high, it is likely that other unmeasured parameters are also influencing the functional genes of the microbial communities in these watersheds. Further studies in which more measurements can be made, and possibly where nutrients exposure is manipulated and compared to reference sites, might clarify the drivers of differences in the functional potential of the periphyton.