[Characteristics of the eukaryotic community structure in acid mine drainage lake in Anhui Province, China].

OBJECTIVE

We characterized eukaryotic community structure and the relationship between the community structure and environmental factors in acidic mine drainage (AMD) lake of a sulfide mine in Anhui Province, China.

METHODS

The 18S rRNA gene clone libraries were constructed by using molecular biology techniques to analyze the eukaryotic phylogenetic relationships, and the canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) was used to analyze the relationship between the community structure and environmental factors.

RESULTS

The phylogenetic analysis shows that Ascomycota is widespread in the four samples and dominated in the AMD-1 and AMD-3 clone libraries, whereas Chlorophyta and Basidiomycota are the predominant in AMD-2 and AMD-4 samples, respectively. Moreover, many sequences in libraries were closely related to those of acid-resisting and metal-resisting eukaryotic microbes, such as Sarcinomyces petricola, Penicillium janthinellum, Coniochaeta velutina, Trichoderma viride, Chlorella protothecoides var. acidicola, Ochromonas sp., and there are high content of known human pathogens, such as Lecythophora hoffmannii, Cryptococcus neoformans. CCA analysis revealed that the critical factors influencing the eukaryotic community structure include TN, SO4(2-), Fe2+ and Eh.

CONCLUSION

Difference of eukaryotic community structure in time and spare may be related with physico-chemical properties of acidic mine drainage. High content of human pathogens was detected in the acidic ecosystem. The ecological study of eukaryotes under the acidic conditions can help to find efficient methods to process acid mine drainage.