Tuesday 14 August | PS08 – Ecological principles in polluted environments

Antibiotics used in livestock are released into the environment and affect the
accumulation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and antibiotic resistant bacteria
(ARB). In particular, wastewater from livestock industries and fisheries is one of the
major contributors to antibiotic contamination in the environment. This study
identified the changes in bacterial community and ARGs upstream water, effluent
from wastewater treatment plant and downstream water of the 4 rivers in Korea.
Samples were obtained from 7 livestock and 3 fisheries. And a total of 38 samples
were used for the metagenome analysis. The dominant genus in all samples was
Flavobacterium, Limnohabitans, Fluviicola, and Sediminibacterium. A total of 193
subtypes within 15 ARG types were detected in all samples, and the most common
types in the environment were Sulfonamide, Aminoglycoside, and Tetracycline. Total
relative abundance of ARGs increased about 4 times in the effluent and decreased
in the downstream water, but relatively higher than upstream water. Arcobacter,
Novosphingobium, and Acinetobacter were increased in the effluent samples, and
the pattern of abundance change was similar to that of ARGs. These results indicate
that the bacterial community from the wastewater into the freshwater can affect the
diffusion and accumulation of ARGs in the downstream environment. Therefore, this
study suggests that the intensive use of antibiotics would lead a continuous influx of
ARB and ARGs from wastewater into the environment, which would have a
significant impact on aquatic environmental contamination and further on human
health.

050B - Seasonal dynamics of microbial metagenomes in the aquatic

environment during cyanobacterial blooms

Joon Yong Kim*, Se Hee Lee, Seong Woon Roh

World Institute of Kimchi, South Korea

The Nakdong River is the longest river in South Korea and an important source of
drinking and industrial water as it passes through major cities; it is also Korea's
largest gateway for migratory birds. Recently, severe cyanobacterial blooms have
occurred every summer in the river. Owing to the environmental consequences of
these blooms, it is important to characterize changes in microbial taxa and functional
genes in the area to improve monitoring and management. In a metagenomic
analysis of microorganisms in the river, we found that the bacterial composition
varied significantly among seasons due to the occurrence of cyanobacterial blooms.
Specifically, operational taxonomic units (OTUs) belonging to the genus Microcystis
were dominant in the summer and OTUs related to Stramenopiles in the domain
Eukaryota were abundant in other seasons. Seven phylotypes related to
methanogens in the domain Archaea were detected in samples. In addition,
significant differences in the presence of functional genes in the microbial
communities were found among seasons. While most metagenomics studies have
focused on marine ecosystems at a single time point, we used a metagenomics
approach to investigate the microbial community and functional gene diversity in a
freshwater ecosystem and extended the analysis to include seasonal dynamics.
These results improve our understanding of the environmental impact of microbial
communities in freshwater ecosystems.

051B - Ecology of Vibrio species and bacterial communities across an

estuarine continuum in the Bay of Bengal
Tuesday 14 August | PS08 – Ecological principles in polluted environments

Germán Kopprio*1, Sucharit Neogi2, Harunur Rashid3, Boris Koch4, Rubén Lara5,
Astrid Gärdes6
1Leinbniz Center for Tropical Marine Research, Germany, 2Osaka Prefecture

University, Japan, 3Asian University for Women, Bangladesh, 4Alfred Wegener

Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, Germany, 5Instituto
Argentino de Oceanografía, Argentina, 6Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine
Research, Germany

Culturable and non-culturable Vibrio and bacterial communities and their relation
with water quality, nutrients and isotopic markers were studied through a salinity and
pollution gradient in the Karnaphuli estuary (Bangladesh) during pre- and post-
monsoon seasons. Canonical Correspondence Analysis and Spearman Rank
correlations revealed the strong influence of salinity and organic nutrients on the
distribution of culturable Vibrio counts, copies of outer membrane protein gene
(ompW) for Vibrio cholerae determined by qPCR and cells counts based on CARD-
FISH probes for Vibrio spp. The relative abundance of the order Vibrionales after
16S rRNA analyses followed the same trend. A pattern between the abundance of
the cholerae toxin gene (ctxA) and water quality or biogeochemical factors was not
clearly observed. The important role of bentho-pelagic processes and particulate
organic matter in the dynamic of Vibrio was inferred. The enrichment in the δ13C
signature of the particulate organic matter (POM) at the marine stations coincided
with a higher abundance of Oceanospirillales, Rhodobacterales and Vibrionales.
Organisms of these orders may degrade estuarine organic matter enriching the δ13C
pool. The depletion of the δ15N signature coincided with the maximum of
ammonium, coliforms, dissolved organic nitrogen and the relative abundance of
Arcobacter spp. at the sewage discharge station in the Post-monsoon season. This
phenomenon evidenced the importance of this genus in the nitrogen cycle and
ammonification of organic compounds. Global change is likely to increase the
trophic state and salinisation of estuaries, and consequently, it may impact on the
dynamic of Vibrio, bacteria and human coastal communities.

052B - Identification and characterization of a mercury resistance plasmid

shows latent functions harbored in pristine groundwaters

Ankita Kothari*1, Yu-Wei Wu2, Marimikel Charrier3, Lara Rajeev3, Andrea Rocha4,
Charles Paradis4, Terry Hazen4, Steven Singer3, Aindrila Mukhopadhyay3
1Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, United States, 22Graduate Institute of Biomedical

Informatics, Taipei Medical University,, Taiwan, 3Lawrence Berkeley National

Laboratory, United States, 4University of Tennessee, United States

Native plasmids constitute a major category of extrachromosomal DNA elements

responsible for harboring and transferring genes important for survival and fitness.
We optimized a cultivation-free method targeting plasmid DNA across a range of
sizes and abundance to examine the plasmidome of ground water samples from
several pristine wells proximal to a superfund waste site. We made two interesting
observations. One, the taxonomic distribution of bacteria showed greater similarity
across samples based on their plasmidome sequences, relative to that based on
16S rRNA sequences. Second, candidates providing resistance to metals (copper,
zinc, cadmium, arsenic, mercury) and antibiotics were particularly abundant. Deep