Project description:Xiangjiang River (Hunan, China) has been contaminated with heavy metal for several decades by surrounding factories. However, little is known about the influence of a gradient of heavy metal contamination on the diversity, structure of microbial functional gene in sediment. To deeply understand the impact of heavy metal contamination on microbial community, a comprehensive functional gene array (GeoChip 5.0) has been used to study the functional genes structure, composition, diversity and metabolic potential of microbial community from three heavy metal polluted sites of Xiangjiang River. Three groups of samples, A, B and C. Every group has 3 replicates.
Project description:Xiangjiang River (Hunan, China) has been contaminated with heavy metal for several decades by surrounding factories. However, little is known about the influence of a gradient of heavy metal contamination on the diversity, structure of microbial functional gene in sediment. To deeply understand the impact of heavy metal contamination on microbial community, a comprehensive functional gene array (GeoChip 5.0) has been used to study the functional genes structure, composition, diversity and metabolic potential of microbial community from three heavy metal polluted sites of Xiangjiang River.
Project description:Functional redundancy in bacterial communities is expected to allow microbial assemblages to survive perturbation by allowing continuity in function despite compositional changes in communities. Recent evidence suggests, however, that microbial communities change both composition and function as a result of disturbance. We present evidence for a third response: resistance. We examined microbial community response to perturbation caused by nutrient enrichment in salt marsh sediments using deep pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA and functional gene microarrays targeting the nirS gene. Composition of the microbial community, as demonstrated by both genes, was unaffected by significant variations in external nutrient supply, despite demonstrable and diverse nutrient–induced changes in many aspects of marsh ecology. The lack of response to external forcing demonstrates a remarkable uncoupling between microbial composition and ecosystem-level biogeochemical processes and suggests that sediment microbial communities are able to resist some forms of perturbation. nirS gene diversity from two salt marsh experiments, GSM (4 treatments, 8 samples, duplicate arrays, four replicate blocks per array, 8 arrays per slide) and PIE (2 treatments, 16 samples, duplicate arrays four replicate blocks per array, 8 arrays per slide)
Project description:We established simple synthetic microbial communities in a microcosm model system to determine the mechanisms that underlay cross-feeding in microbial methane-consuming communities. Co-occurring strains from Lake Washington sediment were used that are involved in methane consumption, a methanotroph and two non-methanotrophic methylotrophs.
Project description:We investigated a contaminant-degrading microbial community by sequencing total RNA (without rRNA depletion) from microcosms containing sediment from a hypoxic contaminated aquifer fed with isotopically labeled toluene.
Project description:Abstract: Nanoparticles (NPs) are expected to make their way into the aquatic environment where sedimentation of particles will likely occur, putting benthic organisms at particular risk. Therefore, organisms such as Hyalella azteca, an epibenthic crustacean which forages at the sediment surface, is likely to have a high potential exposure. Here we show that Zinc Oxide (ZnO) NPs are more toxic to H. azteca compared with the corresponding metal ion, Zn2+. Dissolution of ZnO NPs contributes about 50% of the Zn measured in the ZnO NP suspensions, and cannot account for the toxicity of these particles to H. azteca. However, gene expression analysis is unable to distinguish between the ZnO NP exposures and Zinc Sulfate (ZnSO4) exposures at equitoxic concentrations. These results lead us to hypothesize that ZnO NPs provide and an enhanced exposure route for Zn2+ uptake into H. azteca, and possibly other sediment dwelling organisms. Our study supports the prediction that sediment dwelling organisms are highly susceptible to the effects of ZnO NPs and should be considered in the risk assessment of these nanomaterials.
Project description:Abstract: Nanoparticles (NPs) are expected to make their way into the aquatic environment where sedimentation of particles will likely occur, putting benthic organisms at particular risk. Therefore, organisms such as Hyalella azteca, an epibenthic crustacean which forages at the sediment surface, is likely to have a high potential exposure. Here we show that Zinc Oxide (ZnO) NPs are more toxic to H. azteca compared with the corresponding metal ion, Zn2+. Dissolution of ZnO NPs contributes about 50% of the Zn measured in the ZnO NP suspensions, and cannot account for the toxicity of these particles to H. azteca. However, gene expression analysis is unable to distinguish between the ZnO NP exposures and Zinc Sulfate (ZnSO4) exposures at equitoxic concentrations. These results lead us to hypothesize that ZnO NPs provide and an enhanced exposure route for Zn2+ uptake into H. azteca, and possibly other sediment dwelling organisms. Our study supports the prediction that sediment dwelling organisms are highly susceptible to the effects of ZnO NPs and should be considered in the risk assessment of these nanomaterials. This experiment included four different treatments and an untreated control. Each treatment or control, consisted of ten independent replicates of twenty Hyalella azteca. Of these, six were randomly chosen to be used for the microarray analysis.