This study investigates the possibility of applying microbial community profile changes to pollution source identification. Microbial profiles were monitored in two systems, one is laboratory scale sediment microcosms, the other is a local river with heavy industrial discharge. In the sediment microcosms, river water from a clean upstream source was spiked with different concentrations of copper sulfate and used as the influent. The microcosms were cultured for 8 weeks. Water samples (influents and effluents) were collected periodically, and sediments were collected at 0, 2nd, 4th, and 8th weeks. Field sampling were performed at a local river for three times over a 10 months period. Chemical parameters such as nitrate, phosphate, and heavy metal concentrations were analyzed for all water samples from both reactor and field samples. And, crude nucleic acids for sediments and waters were extracted, cleaned and sent for 16S r-RNA gene amplicon sequencing by next generation sequencing with MiSeq platform (Illumina). The results showed that copper sulfate will accumulate in reactor sediments and nitrification processes were inhibited. For the field study, water samples showed increasing trends of chloride concentration in both water and sediments from upstream to downstream. And, high concentrations of metals were observed in several sampling sites along the river. The microbial sequence results from the sediment microcosms, river sediments and river waters showed that Aeromonadaceae, Burkholderiales_incertae_sedis, Caldilineaceae, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, Planctomycetaceae, Pseudomonodaceae, and Xanthobacteraceae were observed in all samples and were correlated with copper concentration in canonical correspondence analysis analysis. In addition, the abundance of Burkholderiaceae, Hydrogenophilaceae, Methylophilaceae, Chitinophagaceae, and Flavobacteriaceae were associated with copper sulfate exposures in microcosm sediments. With proper field testing to verify their repeatability and reproducibility, these families were possible candidates for tracking unregulated copper wastewater discharge in streams.

Potential identification of unregulated discharges from microbial population in river sediments

256th National Meeting (2018)

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