ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Aquatic Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1578657
This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobial Involvement in Biogeochemical Cycling and Contaminant Transformations at Land-Water Ecotones - Volume 2View all articles
Spatial distribution and source apportionment of nitrogen in typical plain river networks and bacterial community response
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zhejiang Institute of Hydraulics & Estuary, Hangzhou, China
- 2Department of Water Resources of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou City, China
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Yubei plain river networks are confined and poorly hydrodynamics, leading to pollutants’ accumulation. It was hence of great significance to explore the mechanism of different anthropogenic contamination sources (domestic, aquaculture, industrial and agricultural) on nitrogen content, nitrifying, denitrifying, bacterial composition. The total nitrogen (TN) concentration exhibited a distinct spatial pattern, with industrial area demonstrating the highest, closely followed by aquaculture area, domestic and agricultural areas. The stable isotope analysis delineated three dominant pollution source areas within the study area, i) an industrial pollution dominant area accounting for 55% of the pollutant load, ii) a domestic pollution dominant area (39%), and iii) an aquaculture pollution dominant area (43%). The industry pollution samples demonstrated the greatest TN concentrations and the lowest NO3-/TN. The strong nitrification at high DO in the study area was investigated by stable isotope analysis. Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Desulfobacteria were the dominant bacterial in the study area. Notably, Malikia with nitrate reducing capabilities in industry pollution area was significantly higher than other pollution area. The diversity of nitrogen types characteristic of domestic pollution area mediated bacterial selection pressures, favoring nitrogen cycling and amplifying functional genes abundance. This bacterial drove enhanced nitrogen cycle efficiency, ultimately reducing nitrogen concentration. Bacterial analyses revealed marked divergence in both community composition and function across distinct pollution. Particularly, the ecological networks analysis showed more complex and more network links in aquaculture pollution. Overall, the results reveal the impacts of the type of pollution resources on the ecological processes shaping river microbial communities and determines variations in bacterial diversity and nitrogen-cycling gene abundances.
Keywords: Source appointment, Microbial Diversity, Nitrogen, stable isotope, Plain River network
Received: 18 Feb 2025; Accepted: 30 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 You, Zheng and Yao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Pengcheng Yao, Zhejiang Institute of Hydraulics & Estuary, Hangzhou, China
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