Community structure of bacterioplankton and its relationship with environmental factors in the upper reaches of the Heihe River in Qinghai Plateau

Abstract

Planktonic microorganisms play a key role in the biogeochemical processes of the aquatic system, and they may be affected by many factors. High-throughput sequencing technology was used in this study to investigate and study the bacterioplankton community of water bodies in the upper reaches of the Heihe River Basin in Qinghai Plateau. Results showed that Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria are the predominant phyla in this river section, while the main genera are Thiomonas, Acidibacillus, Acidocella, Rhodanobacter, Acidithiobacter and Gallionella, which are autochthonous in the acid-mine drainage. Additionally, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, permanganate index and pH are significantly correlated with the bacterioplankton abundance and are the main limiting factors for the spatial distribution of the bacterioplankton. PICRUSt inferred that the mainstream microbial assemblages had a higher abundance of KOs belong to metabolism of terpenoids and polyketides, while the tributary had higher abundance of KOs belong to the immune system. The relationship between bacterioplankton community composition and environmental factors in the Heihe River basin was discussed for the first time in this study, which provides a theoretical basis for the healthy, orderly development of the water environment in the Heihe River Basin.