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Impacts of vegetation, tidal process, and depth on the activities, abundances, and community compositions of denitrifiers in mangrove sediment

  • Applied microbial and cell physiology
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Abstract

Coastal mangrove wetland is well known to be intense in nitrogen cycling. The tidal process and plants are key factors in controlling the microbial processes in wetlands. However, mechanisms on how these factors and their interactions affect the microorganisms involved in denitrification remain poorly understood. In this study, the impacts of vegetation (bulk, Kandelia obovata, and Spartina alterniflora) and tidal process (falling tide and rising tide) on denitrification activities, abundances, and community compositions of denitrifiers in the sediments from different depths (0–5 and 5–10 cm) were investigated in a microcosm experiment. A significant enhancement of denitrification activities and gene abundances (nirS, nirK, and nosZ) in the vegetated sediments was observed. Activities and abundances were significantly higher in the 0–5-cm sediments when compared with the 5–10-cm counterparts. The effect of interaction between vegetation and tide or depth was also significant. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis revealed that not only vegetation but also plant species had a significant impact on the community compositions of nirK denitrifiers, while the tidal process affected the community compositions of nirS and nosZ denitrifiers but not nirK denitrifiers. However, depth only significantly shaped the nirS denitrifier communities. These findings demonstrate the effects of these factors and their interactions in shaping the denitrifiers in sediments.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (2012J05070), the Natural Science Foundation of China (31000254), and the International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China (2011DFB91710). We thank Lars Molstad (UMB Nitrogen group, Norwegian University of Life Sciences) for providing software and constructing the robotized incubation system for analyzing gas kinetics. We would like to thank Prof. Laurent Philippot from INRA for the valuable suggestions on the earlier version of this manuscript and Prof. Christopher Günther T. Rensing from the University of Copenhagen for the critical reading and for revising this manuscript.

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  1. Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1799 Jimei Road, Xiamen, 361021, China

    Hai-Tao Wang, Jian-Qiang Su & Xiao-Ru Yang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science and Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Coastal and Wetland Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361102, China

    Hai-Tao Wang & Tian-Ling Zheng

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  1. Hai-Tao Wang
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Wang, HT., Su, JQ., Zheng, TL. et al. Impacts of vegetation, tidal process, and depth on the activities, abundances, and community compositions of denitrifiers in mangrove sediment. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 98, 9375–9387 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-6017-8

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