Journal
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
Volume 566, Issue -, Pages 1289-1296Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.189
Keywords
Wetland; Microbial ecology; Sulfate reducing bacteria; Mercury; Methylmercury
Categories
Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- U.S. EPA-Science To Achieve Results (STAR) Program [R827630]
- Great Lakes Commission, Great Lakes Air Deposition Program
- Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
- EPA [1099159, R827630] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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As part of a long-term, peatland-scale sulfate addition experiment, the impact of varying sulfate deposition on bacterial community responses was assessed using 16S tag encoded pyrosequencing. In three separate areas of the peatland, sulfate manipulations included an eight year quadrupling of atmospheric sulfate deposition (experimental), a 3-year recovery to background deposition following 5 years of elevated deposition (recovery), and a control area. Peat concentrations of methylmercury (MeHg), a bioaccumulative neurotoxin, were measured, the production of which is attributable to a growing list of microorganisms, including many sulfate-reducing Deltaproteobacteria. The total bacterial and Deltaproteobacterial community structures in the experimental treatment differed significantly from those in the control and recovery treatments that were either indistinguishable or very similar to one another. Notably, the relatively rapid return (within three years) of bacterial community structure in the recovery treatment to a state similar to the control, demonstrates significant resilience of the peatland bacterial community to changes in atmospheric sulfate deposition. Changes in MeHg accumulation between sulfate treatments correlated with changes in the Deltaproteobacterial community, suggesting that sulfate may affect MeHg production through changes in the community structure of this group. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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