Metagenomic insights into the effects of submerged plants on functional potential of microbial communities in wetland sediments

作者：Binhao Wang, Xiafei Zheng, Hangjun Zhang, Xiaoli Yu, Yingli Lian, Xueqin Yang, Yu Huang, Ruiwen Hu, Zhili He, Fanshu Xiao, Qingyun Yan · 发表于：Marine Life Science & Technology · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1007/s42995-021-00100-3 · 被引用次数：46 · 研究领域：Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment、Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology、Plant responses to water stress

Abstract Submerged plants in wetlands play important roles as ecosystem engineers to improve self-purification and promote elemental cycling. However, their effects on the functional capacity of microbial communities in wetland sediments remain poorly understood. Here, we provide detailed metagenomic insights into the biogeochemical potential of microbial communities in wetland sediments with and without submerged plants (i.e., Vallisneria natans ). A large number of functional genes involved in carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) cycling were detected in the wetland sediments. However, most functional genes showed higher abundance in sediments with submerged plants than in those without plants. Based on the comparison of annotated functional genes in the N and S cycling databases (i.e., NCycDB and SCycDB), we found that genes involved in nitrogen fixation (e.g., nifD/H/K/W ), assimilatory nitrate reduction (e.g., nasA and nirA ), denitrification (e.g., nirK/S and nosZ ), assimilatory sulfate reduction (e.g., cysD/H/J/N/Q and sir ), and sulfur oxidation (e.g., glpE, soeA, sqr and sseA ) were significantly higher (corrected p < 0.05) in vegetated vs. unvegetated sediments. This could be mainly driven by environmental factors including total phosphorus, total nitrogen, and C:N ratio. The binning of metagenomes further revealed that some archaeal taxa could have the potential of methane metabolism including hydrogenotrophic, acetoclastic, and methylotrophic methanogenesis...