Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T1Z3, Canada.
Geography Program and Quesnel River Research Centre, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia, V2N4Z9, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2019 Feb 25;9(1):2705. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-38909-9.
The West Basin of Quesnel Lake (British Columbia, Canada) suffered a catastrophic disturbance event in August 2014 when mine tailings and scoured natural material were deposited into the lake's West Basin due to an impoundment failure at the adjacent Mount Polley copper-gold mine. The deposit covered a significant portion of the West Basin floor with a thick layer of material. Since lake sediments host bacterial communities that play key roles in the geochemical cycling in lacustrine environments, it is important to understand which groups inhabit the newly deposited material and what this implies for the ecological function of the West Basin. Here we report a study conducted two years post-spill, comparing the bacterial communities from sediments of both disturbed and undisturbed sites. Our results show that sediments from disturbed sites differed in physical and chemical properties than those in undisturbed sites (e.g. higher pH, particle size and Cu concentration). Furthermore, bacterial communities from the disturbed sites appeared to be legacy communities from the tailings impoundment, with metabolic potential revolving mainly around the cycling of S and metals, whereas the ones from the undisturbed sites were associated with the cycling of N.
奎斯内尔湖西区（加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省）于 2014 年 8 月遭遇了一场灾难性的干扰事件，当时毗邻的波利山铜矿的堤坝决口，导致尾矿和冲刷的自然物质被冲入该湖的西区。沉积物覆盖了西区底部的很大一部分，形成了一层厚厚的物质。由于湖底沉积物中存在着在湖泊环境中发挥关键作用的细菌群落，因此了解哪些群体栖息在新沉积的物质中以及这对西区的生态功能意味着什么非常重要。在这里，我们报告了一项在溢油事件发生两年后进行的研究，比较了受干扰和未受干扰地点沉积物中的细菌群落。我们的结果表明，受干扰地点的沉积物在物理和化学性质上与未受干扰地点的沉积物不同（例如，pH 值、粒径和 Cu 浓度较高）。此外，受干扰地点的细菌群落似乎是尾矿坝的遗留群落，其代谢潜力主要围绕 S 和金属的循环，而未受干扰地点的细菌群落则与 N 的循环有关。
