Urban streams are heavily influenced by human activity. One way that this occurs is through the reintroduction of treated effluent from wastewater treatment plants. We measured the microbial community composition of water, sediment, and soil at sites upstream and downstream from two Charlotte treatment facilities. We performed 16S rRNA gene sequencing to assay the microbial community composition at each site at four time points between the late winter and mid-summer of 2016. Despite the location of these streams in an urban area with many influences and disruptions, the streams maintain distinct water, sediment, and soil microbial profiles. While there is an overlap of microbial species in upstream and downstream sites, there are several taxa that differentiate these sites. Some taxa characteristics of human-associated microbial communities appear elevated in the downstream sediment communities. In the wastewater treatment plant and to a lesser extent in the downstream community, there are high abundance amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) which are less than 97% similar to any sequence in reference databases, suggesting that these environments contain an unexplored biological novelty. Taken together, these results suggest a need to more fully characterize the microbial communities associated with urban streams, and to integrate information about microbial community composition with mechanistic models.

中文翻译：

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北卡罗来纳州北部城市皮埃蒙特流域接收废水输入的沉积物微生物多样性

城市河流深受人类活动的影响。发生这种情况的一种方式是重新引入来自废水处理厂的处理过的污水。我们测量了两个夏洛特处理设施上游和下游地点的水、沉积物和土壤的微生物群落组成。我们在 2016 年冬末和仲夏之间的四个时间点进行了 16S rRNA 基因测序，以测定每个地点的微生物群落组成。 尽管这些溪流位于城市地区，受到许多影响和干扰，但溪流保持不同水、沉积物和土壤微生物概况。虽然上游和下游站点的微生物物种重叠，但有几个分类群可以区分这些站点。在下游沉积物群落中，人类相关微生物群落的一些分类群特征似乎升高。在污水处理厂和下游社区，在较小程度上存在高丰度扩增子序列变体 (ASV)，其与参考数据库中的任何序列的相似度均低于 97%，表明这些环境包含未开发的生物新奇。总之，这些结果表明需要更全面地表征与城市河流相关的微生物群落，并将有关微生物群落组成的信息与机械模型相结合。存在高丰度扩增子序列变体 (ASV)，它们与参考数据库中的任何序列的相似度低于 97%，这表明这些环境包含未探索的生物新奇。总之，这些结果表明需要更全面地表征与城市河流相关的微生物群落，并将有关微生物群落组成的信息与机械模型相结合。存在高丰度扩增子序列变体 (ASV)，它们与参考数据库中的任何序列的相似度低于 97%，这表明这些环境包含未探索的生物新奇。总之，这些结果表明需要更全面地表征与城市河流相关的微生物群落，并将有关微生物群落组成的信息与机械模型相结合。