Seasonal distribution of nitrifiers and denitrifiers in urban river sediments affected by agricultural activities

Shan Huang, Chen Chen, Peter R. Jaffe

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

42 Scopus citations

Abstract

Nitrifiers and denitrifiers play a critical role in nitrogen removal in urban river sediments that are also affected by agricultural activities. However, the seasonal variations and vertical profile of these organisms in these river sediments are not well understood. In this study, the seasonal and depth (0 to 30 cm) distributions of the abundance and activity of nitrifiers and denitrifiers in sediments of the Pearl River in Guangzhou city were quantifying via qPCR and RT-qPCR according to various nitrifying and denitrifying functional genes, and their diversities were analyzed via high-throughput sequencing on an Illumina MiSeq platform. Results show that the distribution of nitrifiers and denitrifiers in these urban sediments were more abundant and active during the summer than winter; had distinct vertical distributions in the bacterial numbers and activity, with higher activity of the nirS gene (yearly averaged RNA:DNA 2.5% at 18 to 22 cm, vs. a yearly-depth average of 0.65%) but with lower overall numbers (yearly averaged 2.1 × 106 copies g−1 at 18 to 22 cm, vs. a yearly-depth average of 12.5 × 106 copies g−1); and their amoA and nosZ gene diversities in the sediments exhibited a correlation with the communities in nearby agricultural soils.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1282-1291
Number of pages10
JournalScience of the Total Environment
Volume642
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 15 2018

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Pollution
  • Waste Management and Disposal
  • Environmental Engineering
  • Environmental Chemistry

Keywords

  • Agricultural soils
  • Annamox
  • Denitrifying gene
  • Feammox
  • Nitrifying gene
  • River sediments
  • Seasonal variation

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