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Insights into Bacterial Community Structure and Metabolic Diversity of Mercury-Contaminated Sediments from Hyeongsan River, Pohang, South Korea

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Abstract

This study investigated the bacterial community structure and metabolic diversity and their relationship with Hg and other environmental variables in sediments collected from different locations (HSR-1–HSR-6) in the Hyeongsan River estuary in South Korea. The results showed that the highest total mercury (THg) and methylmercury (MeHg) concentrations were in HSR-2, with values of 4585.3 µg/kg and 13.4 µg/kg, respectively. The lowest THg (31.9 µg/kg) and MeHg (0.1 µg/kg) concentrations were found in HSR-1. Sulfate and organic matter (OM) were more influential environmental variables, revealing a positive association with THg and MeHg and negatively affecting bacterial and metabolic diversities. Bacterial and metabolic diversities were also negatively impacted by the THg and MeHg concentrations. Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes were abundantly distributed in all the sediments. The dominance of Proteobacteria was upscaled in all the heavily Hg-contaminated sites (HSR-2–HSR-6), and it was the only phylum that showed a significant positive correlation with THg, MeHg, and OM. The genera Sulfurovum and Sulfurimonas were abundantly observed in sites with high Hg contamination, whereas Congregibacter, Gaetbulibacter, Ilumatobacter, Methylotenera, Nevskia, and Sediminibacter were only detected in low Hg-contaminated sites (HSR-1). The community-level physiological profile data showed the highest (1.0) average well color development (AWCD) value in HSR-1 and the lowest (0.45) AWCD value in HSR-2. Overall, these results demonstrated the inhibitory effects of THg, MeHg, and other environmental variables on microbial communities and metabolic diversity. These findings broaden the current knowledge on the dynamics of bacterial and metabolic diversities in Hg-contaminated sediments and might be useful in the management of Hg pollution.

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Data Availability

All 16S rRNA amplicon sequence data were deposited in the NCBI GenBank under BioProject accession number PRJNA718171.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute through the Aquatic Ecosystem Conservation Research Program funded by the Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE) (1485017197) and the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) funded by the MOE of the Republic of Korea (NIER-2020-04-02073).

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  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Korea University Sejong Campus, 2511 Sejong-ro, Sejong, 30019, Republic of Korea

    Dhiraj Kumar Chaudhary, Hwansuk Kim & Yongseok Hong

  2. Water Environmental Engineering Research Division, National Institute of Environmental Research, Hwangyong-ro 42, Seogu, Incheon, 22689, Republic of Korea

    Kyung Hee Kim & Mikyung Lee

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Contributions

DKC and YH designed the study. DKC, KHK, and ML contributed to the experimental work, data analysis, and original draft preparation. HK contributed to data visualization and graphical work. DKC and YH reviewed and finalized the manuscript. YH supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Yongseok Hong.

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Chaudhary, D.K., Kim, K.H., Lee, M. et al. Insights into Bacterial Community Structure and Metabolic Diversity of Mercury-Contaminated Sediments from Hyeongsan River, Pohang, South Korea. Curr Microbiol 79, 156 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-022-02847-z

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