Bacterial community composition of Pantanal river waters assessed by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing
This project characterizes the bacterial community composition of surface waters from two rivers in the Brazilian Pantanal wetland (Upper Paraguay Basin, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil): the Paraguai River and the Abobral River. Samples were collected during the early rainy season (November-December 2023), prior to the onset of the annual flood pulse and following recent wildfire events in the region. Environmental DNA was extracted from water filtered through 0.22 um membranes using the DNeasy PowerWater Kit (QIAGEN). The V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified with primers 341F/785R and sequenced on the Oxford Nanopore MinION platform (R10.4.1 flow cells). The study aims to describe the microbial diversity and community structure of these freshwater ecosystems and to provide baseline data for monitoring the ecological impacts of fire and hydrological seasonality on Pantanal river microbiota.