A flagship seven-year study led by the University of Oklahoma that explores how environmental stresses influence different ecological processes shaping the composition and structure of microbial communities in groundwater, has been published in the journal Nature Microbiology.
“We analyzed more than 200 biogeochemical variables, observing nearly 29,000 groups of similar microorganisms, to theorize the relationships between community assembly processes and environmental stresses,” Zhou said. ”We found that stochastic, or random, assembly processes were critical in shaping community structure, but their relative importance decreased as stress increased.”
The team collected groundwater samples from approximately 100 wells at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Field Research Center, a former nuclear waste disposal site, conducting comprehensive physical and chemical analyses and microbiome analyses.
“When we examined the groundwater at Oak Ridge, we found that it showed a remarkably large gradient of environmental conditions. Some areas were contaminated with extremely high levels of uranium, nitrate, and various heavy and radioactive metals,” Zhou said. “The pH in the groundwater varied from approximately 2 to 11, providing an unprecedented opportunity to discern the relationships between community assembly processes and environmental stresses.”
They found that many species were suppressed as stress increased, while those with a higher tolerance turned to thrive. However, under low or no-stress environments, species grew faster, resulting in much higher frequencies of birth, death, and migration.
2024-01-17 12:41:03
Source from phys.org