title: Profiling microbial community in a watershed heavily contaminated by an active antimony (Sb) mine in Southwest China.
abstract: Located in Southwest China, the Chahe watershed has been severely contaminated by upstream active antimony (Sb) mines. The extremely high concentrations of Sb make the Chahe watershed an excellent model to elucidate the response of indigenous microbial activities within a severe Sb-contaminated environment. In this study, water and surface sediments from six locations in the Chahe watershed with different levels of Sb contamination were analyzed. Illumina sequencing of 16S rRNA amplicons revealed more than 40 phyla from the domain Bacteria and 2 phyla from the domain Archaea. Sequences assigned to the genera Flavobacterium, Sulfuricurvum, Halomonas, Shewanella, Lactobacillus, Acinetobacter, and Geobacter demonstrated high relative abundances in all sequencing libraries. Spearman's rank correlations indicated that a number of microbial phylotypes were positively correlated with different speciation of Sb, suggesting potential roles of these phylotypes in microbial Sb cycling. Canonical correspondence analysis further demonstrated that geochemical parameters, including water temperature, pH, total Fe, sulfate, aqueous Sb, and Eh, significantly structured the overall microbial community in Chahe watershed samples. Our findings offer a direct and reliable reference to the diversity of microbial communities in the presence of extremely high Sb concentrations, and may have potential implications for in situ bioremediation strategies of Sb contaminated sites.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550002, PR China; Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
authors.forename: Weimin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550002, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
authors.forename: Enzong
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Geology, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Yiran
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5B3, Canada.
authors.forename: Song
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
authors.forename: Valdis
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Krumins
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550002, PR China.
authors.forename: Zengping
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550002, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Water Resources Protection Bureau of Pearl River Water Resources Commission, Guangzhou 510611, PR China.
authors.forename: Yanlong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Water Resources Protection Bureau of Pearl River Water Resources Commission, Guangzhou 510611, PR China.
authors.forename: Shiliang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550002, PR China. Electronic address: xiaotangfu@vip.gyig.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Tangfu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Xiao
mesh_terms: D000965:Antimony / Q000032:analysis*; D001105:Archaea / Q000235:genetics; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D002681:China; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D008906:Mining; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D000965:Antimony
keywords: Antimony contamination; Bioremediation; Microbial community analysis; Sb-metabolizing bacteria; Statistical analysis