The attached green alga Cladophora known to harbor microbiota that play important roles in ecosystem, is one of the most common freshwater filamentous green algae in rivers globally, including those in the northern part of Thailand. These rivers mostly run through agricultural regions where herbicides are heavily used to improve crop quality and quantity. The extensively-used herbicide atrazine persists in soil sediments through transport by surface runoff to rivers. The effect of such herbicide contamination on Cladophora microbiota in Thailand have not been investigated. To acquire this information, 16S rDNA amplicons were used to compare microbiota of Cladophora sp. cultures treated with a spectrum of atrazine concentrations. The results showed that the Cladophora microbiome included at least 106 possible Operational taxonomic units (OTUs) representing twelve bacterial phyla which are Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Armatimonadetes, Chloroflexi, Cyanobacteria, Deinococcus-Thermus, Epsilonbacteraeota, Nitrospirae, Patescibacteria, Planctomycetes, Proteobacteria, and WPS-2, representing both core and local algal bacteria. The presence of atrazine was also correlated with changes in richness of bacterial taxa suggesting that these algal epibiotic bacteria were differently affected by atrazine treatments.
Cladophora is an algal genus known to be ecologically important. It provides habitats for microorganisms known to provide ecological services such as biosynthesis of cobalamin (vitamin B12) and nutrient cycling. Most knowledge of microbiomes was obtained from studies of lacustrine Cladophora species. However, whether lotic freshwater Cladophora microbiomes are as complex as the lentic ones or provide similar ecological services is not known. To illuminate these issues, we used amplicons of 16S rDNA, 18S rDNA, and ITS to investigate the taxonomy and diversity of the microorganisms associated with replicate Cladophora samples from three sites along the Nan River, Thailand. Results showed that the diversity of prokaryotic and eukaryotic members of Cladophora microbiomes collected from different sampling sites was statistically different. Fifty percent of the identifiable taxa were shared across sampling sites: these included organisms belonging to different trophic levels, decomposers, and heterotrophic bacteria. These heterogeneous assemblages of bacteria, by functional inference, have the potential to perform various ecological functions, i.e., cellulose degradation, cobalamin biosynthesis, fermentative hydrogen production, ammonium oxidation, amino acid fermentation, dissimilatory reduction of nitrate to ammonium, nitrite reduction, nitrate reduction, sulfur reduction, polyphosphate accumulation, denitrifying phosphorus-accumulation, and degradation of aromatic compounds. Results suggested that river populations of Cladophora provide ecologically important habitat for microorganisms that are key to nutrient cycling in lotic ecosystems.
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