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Vertical distribution of bacterial communities in high arsenic sediments of Hetao Plain, Inner Mongolia

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Abstract

Vertical distribution of bacterial communities was detected in high arsenic (As) sediments in a representative high As area in Inner Mongolia. Nineteen sediment samples were collected from a 30 m borehole and detected by geochemistry and molecular ecological approaches including polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE), 16S rRNA gene clone library and 454 pyrosequencing. As contents ranged from 42.1 to 111.3 mg kg−1 which fluctuated with different depth and significantly high in clay and mild clay sediment samples at depth of 8, 20, 25 and 28 m respectively. The ratios of As(III) to total As generally increased with depth but As(V) dominated in all sediment samples. High concentrations of total As, sulfur, iron and total organic carbon were generally found in clay and low in sand samples. Both DGGE patterns and 454 pyrosequencing results indicated that bacterial communities dynamically diversified with increasing depth and were dominated by Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria and Chloroflexi. Most of the sediment samples were dominated by populations including Sporosarcina, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Halomonas, Polaromonas, Paenibacillus and Flavobacterium. These populations were found with high similarities with those microbes capable of denitrification, sulfur oxidation, organic matter degradation and As resistance and reduction. These results implied that microbes might play an important role in As mobilization in the shallow aquifers of Hetao Plain, Inner Mongolia.

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Acknowledgments

This research was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41372348, 41120124003), National Science Foundation for Post-doctoral Scientists of China (Grant No. 2012M521491, 2013T60757) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) (Grant No.CUG140505 and GBL11204).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, People’s Republic of China

    Yanhong Wang, Ping Li, Dawei Jiang, Bing Li, Xinyue Dai, Zhou Jiang & Yanxin Wang

  2. School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, People’s Republic of China

    Yanhong Wang, Bing Li, Zhou Jiang & Yanxin Wang

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  1. Yanhong Wang
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Correspondence to Ping Li.

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Wang, Y., Li, P., Jiang, D. et al. Vertical distribution of bacterial communities in high arsenic sediments of Hetao Plain, Inner Mongolia. Ecotoxicology 23, 1890–1899 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-014-1322-7

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