Elsevier

Environmental Pollution

Volume 308, 1 September 2022, 119627
Environmental Pollution

Large-scale sampling of the freshwater microbiome suggests pollution-driven ecosystem changes

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2022.119627Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • Antibiotic resistant genes were nearly ubiquitous and in 85% of sampling sites.

  • Freshwater microbial diversity is closely related to the amount of light pollution.

  • The rivers were most impacted by light pollution and antibiotic resistance.

  • CO2 was inversely related to microbial phototrophy.

  • All freshwaters were CO2 net emitters, with higher concentrations in running waters.

Abstract

Freshwater microbes play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle. Anthropogenic stressors that lead to changes in these microbial communities are likely to have profound consequences for freshwater ecosystems. Using field data from the coordinated sampling of 617 lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams by citizen scientists, we observed linkages between microbial community composition, light and chemical pollution, and greenhouse gas concentration. All sampled water bodies were net emitters of CO2, with higher concentrations in running waters, and increasing concentrations at higher latitudes. Light pollution occurred at 75% of sites, was higher in urban areas and along rivers, and had a measurable effect on the microbial alpha diversity. Genetic elements suggestive of chemical stress and antimicrobial resistances (IntI1, blaOX58) were found in 85% of sites, and were also more prevalent in urban streams and rivers. Light pollution and CO2 were significantly related to microbial community composition, with CO2 inversely related to microbial phototrophy. Results of synchronous nationwide sampling indicate that pollution-driven alterations to the freshwater microbiome lead to changes in CO2 production in natural waters and highlight the vulnerability of running waters to anthropogenic stressors.

Keywords

Microbial diversity
Antibiotic-resistance genes
Artificial light at night
Carbon dioxide
Citizen science
Climate change

Data availability

The greenhouse gas data, satellite data, instructions and manuals for the citizens, and all in-situ derived temperature and pH data can be accessed at the supplementary material. All sequenced amplicon data for this study and their raw reads are available from European Nucleotide Archive (ENA, https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/home, PRJEB53570). All data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on request as well. Code and R scripts used to analyse the data are available on Github except for analyses where all settings are fully reported in the Methods.

Cited by (0)

This paper has been recommended for acceptance by Sarah Harmon.