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DiBattista JD, Fowler AM, Shalders TC, Williams RJ, Wilkinson S. Tree of life metabarcoding can serve as a biotic benchmark for shifting baselines in urbanized estuaries. ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH 2024; 258:119454. [PMID: 38906450 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.119454] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2024] [Revised: 06/17/2024] [Accepted: 06/18/2024] [Indexed: 06/23/2024]
Abstract
Urbanization of estuaries drastically changed existing shorelines and bathymetric contours, in turn modifying habitat for marine foundational species that host critical biodiversity. And yet we lack approaches to characterize a significant fraction of the biota that inhabit these ecosystems on time scales that align with rates of urbanization. Environmental DNA (or eDNA) metabarcoding that combines multiple assays targeting a broad range of taxonomic groups can provide a solution, but we need to determine whether the biological communities it detects ally with different habitats in these changing aquatic environments. In this study, we tested whether tree of life metabarcoding (ToL-metabarcoding) data extracted from filtered seawater samples correlated with four known geomorphic habitat zones across a heavily urbanized estuary (Sydney Harbour, Australia). Using this method, we substantially expanded our knowledge on the composition and spatial distribution of marine biodiversity across the tree of life in Sydney Harbour, particularly for organisms where existing records are sparse. Excluding terrestrial DNA inputs, we identified significant effects of both distance from the mouth of Sydney Harbour and geomorphic zone on biological community structure in the ToL-metabarcoding dataset (entire community), as well as in each of the taxonomic subgroups that we considered (fish, macroinvertebrates, algae and aquatic plants, bacteria). This effect appeared to be driven by taxa as a collective versus a few individual taxa, with each taxon explaining no more than 0.62% of the variation between geomorphic zones. Similarly, taxonomic richness was significantly higher within geomorphic zones with large sample sizes, but also decreased by 1% with each additional kilometer from the estuary mouth, a result consistent with a reduction in tidal inputs and available habitat in upper catchments. Based on these results, we suggest that ToL-metabarcoding can be used to benchmark biological monitoring in other urbanized estuaries globally, and in Sydney Harbour at future time points based on detection of bioindicators across the tree of life. We also suggest that robust biotic snapshots can be archived following extensive curation of taxonomic assignments that incorporates ecological affinities, supported by records from relevant and regional biodiversity repositories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph D DiBattista
- School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Southport, QLD, 4222, Australia; Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia.
| | - Ashley M Fowler
- New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, Mosman, NSW, 2088, Australia.
| | - Tanika C Shalders
- Faculty of Science and Engineering, National Marine Science Centre, Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2450, Australia.
| | - Robert J Williams
- New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Fisheries (retired), Australia.
| | - Shaun Wilkinson
- School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, 6012, New Zealand.
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Zhou Y, Meng F, Ochieng B, Xu J, Zhang L, Kimirei IA, Feng M, Zhu L, Wang J. Climate and Environmental Variables Drive Stream Biofilm Bacterial and Fungal Diversity on Tropical Mountainsides. MICROBIAL ECOLOGY 2024; 87:28. [PMID: 38182675 DOI: 10.1007/s00248-023-02335-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2023] [Accepted: 12/22/2023] [Indexed: 01/07/2024]
Abstract
High mountain freshwater systems are particularly sensitive to the impacts of global warming and relevant environmental changes. Microorganisms contribute substantially to biogeochemical processes, yet their distribution patterns and driving mechanism in alpine streams remain understudied. Here, we examined the bacterial and fungal community compositions in stream biofilm along the elevational gradient of 745-1874 m on Mt. Kilimanjaro and explored their alpha and beta diversity patterns and the underlying environmental drivers. We found that the species richness and evenness monotonically increased towards higher elevations for bacteria, while were non-significant for fungi. However, both bacterial and fungal communities showed consistent elevational distance-decay relationships, i.e., the dissimilarity of assemblage composition increased with greater elevational differences. Bacterial alpha diversity patterns were mainly affected by chemical variables such as total nitrogen and phosphorus, while fungi were affected by physical variables such as riparian shading and stream width. Notably, climatic variables such as mean annual temperature strongly affected the elevational succession of bacterial and fungal community compositions. Our study is the first exploration of microbial biodiversity and their underlying driving mechanisms for stream ecosystems in tropical alpine regions. Our findings provide insights on the response patterns of tropical aquatic microbial community composition and diversity under climate change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanan Zhou
- College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210046, China
- State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
| | - Fanfan Meng
- State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Beryl Ochieng
- State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Jianing Xu
- State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
- School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China
| | - Lu Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
| | | | - Muhua Feng
- State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
| | - Lifeng Zhu
- College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210046, China.
- School of Medicine & Holistic Integrative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210023, China.
| | - Jianjun Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China.
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Sahoo MM, Swain JB. Investigation and comparative analysis of ecological risk for heavy metals in sediment and surface water in east coast estuaries of India. MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN 2023; 190:114894. [PMID: 37018906 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.114894] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2023] [Revised: 03/09/2023] [Accepted: 03/25/2023] [Indexed: 06/19/2023]
Abstract
The sediments and surface water from 8 stations each from Dhamara and Paradeep estuarine areas were sampled for investigation of heavy metals, Cd, Cu, Pb, Mn, Ni, Zn, Fe, and Cr contamination. The objective of the sediment and surface water characterization is to find the existing spatial and temporal intercorrelation. The sediment accumulation index (Ised), enrichment index (IEn), ecological risk index (IEcR) and probability heavy metals (p-HMI) reveal the contamination status with Mn, Ni, Zn, Cr, and Cu showing permissible (0 ≤ Ised ≤ 1, IEn ˂ 2, IEcR ≤ 150) to moderate (1 ≤ Ised ≤ 2, 40 ≤ Rf ≤ 80) contamination. The p-HMI reflects the range from excellent (p-HMI = 14.89-14.54) to fair (p-HMI = 22.31-26.56) in off shore stations of the estuary. The spatial patterns of the heavy metals load index (IHMc) along the coast lines indicate that the pollution hotspots are progressively divulged to trace metals pollution over time. Heavy metal source analysis coupled with correlation analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) was used as a data reduction technique, which reveals that the heavy metal pollution in marine coastline might originate from redox reactions (FeMn coupling) and anthropogenic sources.
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