Microbial Functional Gene Diversity Predicts Groundwater Contamination and Ecosystem Functioning

MBio
Zhili HeJizhong Zhou

Abstract

Contamination from anthropogenic activities has significantly impacted Earth's biosphere. However, knowledge about how environmental contamination affects the biodiversity of groundwater microbiomes and ecosystem functioning remains very limited. Here, we used a comprehensive functional gene array to analyze groundwater microbiomes from 69 wells at the Oak Ridge Field Research Center (Oak Ridge, TN), representing a wide pH range and uranium, nitrate, and other contaminants. We hypothesized that the functional diversity of groundwater microbiomes would decrease as environmental contamination (e.g., uranium or nitrate) increased or at low or high pH, while some specific populations capable of utilizing or resistant to those contaminants would increase, and thus, such key microbial functional genes and/or populations could be used to predict groundwater contamination and ecosystem functioning. Our results indicated that functional richness/diversity decreased as uranium (but not nitrate) increased in groundwater. In addition, about 5.9% of specific key functional populations targeted by a comprehensive functional gene array (GeoChip 5) increased significantly (P < 0.05) as uranium or nitrate increased, and their changes could be u...Continue Reading

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Citations

Nov 6, 2018·PloS One·M Umut CaglarClaus O Wilke
Jan 7, 2019·Environmental Science and Pollution Research International·Taotao ZengShuibo Xie
Aug 9, 2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Daliang NingJizhong Zhou
Sep 2, 2020·Environment International·Zhili HeJizhong Zhou
Dec 31, 2018·Journal of Hazardous Materials·Tianliang ZhengTeng Ma
Feb 18, 2020·Journal of Environmental Radioactivity·Christopher E BagwellNikolla P Qafoku

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
chip
Feature Extraction

Software Mentioned

AUC
Agilent Feature Extraction
RF
R package “ randomForest ”
GeoChip
AUS
SigmaPlot

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