Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 4:30 PM
483

Human activities modify bacterial diversity in stream benthic biofilm communities

Gillian Lewis1, Kelly Roberts1, Susan Turner1, Ian K. B. Boothroyd2, and Gavin Lear1. (1) School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, 3a Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand, (2) School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland, 10 Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand

This study tests the hypothesis that human impact is an important driver of stream biofilm bacterial population diversity.   The seasonal bacterial composition of biofilm in 4 streams with different levels of human impact was determined over 2 years.    Bacterial diversity derived from 16S rDNA clone libraries, shows both between stream differences and seasonal transitions in bacterial occurrence and population dominance at a class and genus level.   Diversity analysis calculated on pooled seasonal data (class level identification) shows that while composition of the populations are different there is a similar level of both bacterial richness and bacterial diversity in each stream.     Trends in bacterial occurrence suggest that the most degraded stream were dominated by cyanobacteria, the mid range impact streams by aeromonads and gamma proteobacteria, while the unimpacted stream showed both high  diversity and no  dominance by any particular class.


Web Page: Bacteria, Biofilm, Urban impact