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Environmental and anthropogenic factors affect bacterial community and nitrogen removal in the Yarlung Zangbo River

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Abstract

Microorganisms play a critical role in the process of nitrogen removal in aquatic environment, which is regulated by multiple environmental factors. As a high-altitude region, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has unique composition of bacterial communities due to its unique geographical conditions, which may affect the nitrogen conversion of Plateau rivers. However, the regulation of nitrogen removal by environmental factors and bacterial community in high-altitude rivers has been rarely reported. This study investigated denitrification, anammox, and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium rates as well as the community of bacteria and denitrifiers in the Yarlung Zangbo River. The results showed that denitrification was the dominant nitrate removal process. Redundancy analysis revealed that environmental factors including suspended particulate matter, chemical oxygen demand, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus content, electrical conductivity, and pH explained a large amount of the variance in bacterial community. Denitrifiers carrying nitrite reductase-related gene were an important driver of denitrification in the Yarlung Zangbo River. The low water temperature brought by high altitude significantly reduced the denitrification rate. The cascade dams on the river affected the particle size distribution of sediment, changed the community composition of bacteria and denitrifying bacteria, and increased the denitrification rate in the downstream. Our findings highlight that nitrogen removal processes in high-altitude rivers are jointly regulated by environmental and anthropogenic factors through shaping denitrifier abundance.

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Data availability

The datasets used in the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 42177353, 51879228), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant B210205008), and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Xin Ling & Guanghua Lu

  2. College of Hydraulic and Civil Engineering, XiZang Agriculture and Animal Husbandry College, Linzhi, 860000, China

    Chenwang Xue

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  1. Xin Ling
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  2. Guanghua Lu
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  3. Chenwang Xue
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XL: methodology, writing — original draft, and visualization. GL: conceptualization, resources, and writing — review and editing. CX: investigation and methodology.

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Correspondence to Guanghua Lu.

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Ling, X., Lu, G. & Xue, C. Environmental and anthropogenic factors affect bacterial community and nitrogen removal in the Yarlung Zangbo River. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 84590–84599 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21498-y

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