Biodiversity, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
Centre for Water and Environmental Research, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2022 Nov 4;12(1):18684. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-22906-6.
Aquatic environments serve as a sink for anthropogenic discharges. A significant part of the discharge is tire wear, which is increasingly being released into the environment, causing environmental disasters due to their longevity and the large number of pollutants they contain. Main components of tires are plastic and zinc, which therefore can be used as substitutes for tire abrasion to study the effect on microbial life. We investigate environmentally realistic concentrations of plastic and zinc on a freshwater microeukaryotic community using high-throughput sequencing of the 18S V9 region over a 14-day exposure period. Apart from a generally unchanged diversity upon exposure to zinc and nanoplastics, a change in community structure due to zinc is evident, but not due to nanoplastics. Evidently, nanoplastic particles hardly affect the community, but zinc exposure results in drastic functional abundance shifts concerning the trophic mode. Phototrophic microorganisms were almost completely diminished initially, but photosynthesis recovered. However, the dominant taxa performing photosynthesis changed from bacillariophytes to chlorophytes. While phototrophic organisms are decreasing in the presence of zinc, the mixotrophic fraction initially benefitted and the heterotrophic fraction were benefitting throughout the exposure period. In contrast to lasting changes in taxon composition, the functional community composition is initially strongly imbalanced after application of zinc but returns to the original state.
水生环境是人为排放物的汇。排放物的很大一部分是轮胎磨损，由于轮胎的耐久性和所含污染物数量众多，它们越来越多地被排放到环境中，造成了环境灾难。轮胎的主要成分是塑料和锌，因此可以用作轮胎磨损的替代品，以研究它们对微生物生命的影响。我们使用 18S V9 区高通量测序，在 14 天的暴露期内，研究了环境现实浓度的塑料和锌对淡水微型真核生物群落的影响。除了暴露于锌和纳米塑料后多样性普遍不变外，由于锌暴露导致群落结构发生变化，但由于纳米塑料则没有。显然，纳米塑料颗粒几乎不会影响群落，但锌暴露会导致营养模式的功能丰度发生剧烈变化。最初，光养微生物几乎完全减少，但光合作用恢复了。然而，进行光合作用的主要分类群从硅藻变为绿藻。虽然在锌存在下光养生物减少，但混合营养部分最初受益，异养部分在整个暴露期间都受益。与分类群组成的持久变化相比，功能群落组成在应用锌后最初受到强烈的不平衡影响，但会恢复到原始状态。
