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The differentiation of iron-reducing bacterial community and iron-reduction activity between riverine and marine sediments in the Yellow River estuary

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Abstract

Rivers are the primary contributors of iron and other elements to the global oceans. Iron-reducing bacteria play an important biogeochemical role in coupling the iron and carbon redox cycles. However, the extent of changes in community structures and iron-reduction activities of iron-reducing bacteria in riverine and coastal marine sediments remains unclear. This study presents information on the spatial patterns and relative abundance of iron-reducing bacteria in sediments of the Yellow River estuary and the adjacent Bohai Sea. High-throughput sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA found that the highest relative abundances and diversities were from the estuary (Yellow River–Bohai Sea mixing zone). Pseudomonas, Thiobacillus, Geobacter, Rhodoferax, and Clostridium were the most abundant putative iron-reducing bacteria genera in the sediments of the Yellow River. Vibrio, Shewanella, and Thiobacillus were the most abundant in the sediments of the Bohai Sea. The putative iron-reducing bacterial community was positively correlated with the concentrations of total nitrogen and ammonium in coastal marine sediments, and was significantly correlated with the concentration of nitrate in river sediments. The riverine sediments, with a more diverse iron-reducing bacterial community, exhibited increased activity of Fe(III) reduction in enrichment cultures. The estuary-wide high abundance of putative iron-reducing bacteria suggests that the effect of river–sea interaction on bacterial distribution patterns is high. The results of this study will help the understanding of the biogeochemical cycling of iron in riverine and coastal marine environments.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Prof. Jianhui Tang for sharing marine sediment samples. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 91751112, 41807325, and 41573071); the senior user project of RV KEXUE (no. KEXUE2018G01) and the Key Research Project of Frontier Science (no. QYZDJ-SSW-DQC015) of Chinese Academy of Sciences; the Natural Science Foundation (no. JQ201608 and ZR2018MD011) and the Young Taishan Scholars Program (no. tsqn20161054) of Shandong Province.

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  1. Hongxia Zhang and Fanghua Liu contributed equally to this publication.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Coastal Biology and Biological Resources Utilization, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai, 264003, People’s Republic of China

    Hongxia Zhang, Fanghua Liu, Shiling Zheng, Lei Chen, Xiaoli Zhang & Jun Gong

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, People’s Republic of China

    Hongxia Zhang

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    Hongxia Zhang

  4. Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Matter Cycles, School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai, 519082, People’s Republic of China

    Jun Gong

  5. Southern Laboratory of Ocean Science and Engineering (Guangdong, Zhuhai), Zhuhai, 519000, People’s Republic of China

    Jun Gong

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  1. Hongxia Zhang
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  2. Fanghua Liu
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  3. Shiling Zheng
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Contributions

HZ, FL, and SZ contributed to the presented idea and design. HZ implemented the computational and statistic analyses and took the lead in writing the manuscript. XZ assisted with data analysis. FL and SZ supervised the findings of this work. All authors provided critical feedback and helped to conduct the research, analysis, and manuscript.

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Correspondence to Fanghua Liu or Shiling Zheng.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Edited by Chengchao Chen.

Cite this article: Zhang H, Liu F, Zheng S, Chen L, Zhang X, Gong J (2019) The differentiation of iron-reducing bacterial community and iron-reduction activity between riverine and marine sediments in the Yellow River estuary. Mar Life Sci Technol. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42995-019-00001-6.

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Zhang, H., Liu, F., Zheng, S. et al. The differentiation of iron-reducing bacterial community and iron-reduction activity between riverine and marine sediments in the Yellow River estuary. Mar Life Sci Technol 2, 87–96 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42995-019-00001-6

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