Effects of season and water quality on community structure of planktonic eukaryotes in the Chaohu Lake Basin.

INTRODUCTION

Analyzing the correlation between planktonic eukaryotic communities (PECs) and aquatic physicochemical parameters (APPs) provides important references for predicting the impact of climate change and human activities on aquatic ecosystems.

METHODS

To assess the influence of seasons and APPs on PEC structures in lakes and rivers, we utilized high-throughput sequencing of the 18S rRNA gene to analyze PEC structures in a lake and seven rivers in the Chaohu Lake Basin and analyzed their correlations with APPs.

RESULTS

Our results revealed that PEC structure was significantly affected by season, with the highest α-diversity observed in summer. Furthermore, we identified several APPs, including water temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, pH, phosphate, total phosphorus, trophic level index (TLI), nitrate, ammonia nitrogen, and total nitrogen, that significantly influenced PEC structures. Specifically, we found that , , sp. CCAC_0109, , , , , , , sp., and were significantly correlated to TLI, while , sp., and were significantly correlated to the water quality index (WQI). However, our random forest regression analysis using the top 100 species was unable to accurately predict the WQI and TLI.

DISCUSSION

These results provide valuable data for evaluating the impact of APPs on PEC and for protecting water resource in the Chaohu Lake Basin.