Alfred-Wegener-Institute
for Polar- and Marine Research Helmholtz-Association
Biological Station Helgoland Shelf Sea Systems Ecology D-27489 Helgoland
Rebecca Störmer*, Antje Wichels*, Gunnar Gerdts*
*Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research, Helgoland, Germany;
Results
Microbial community appears very dynamic over space and time (according to nMDS and ANOSIM;
Fig. 1 I-III A)
Organotin compounds were determined to have significant conditional effects (p < 0.05) in all redundancy analyses (RDA) (Fig. 1 I-III B)
Partioning of the variance in the microbial community structure revealed highest contribution for organic pollutants and heavy metals and lowest for S,N,P,C (Fig. 1 I-III C)
*Primer according to Ranjard L, Brothier E, Nazaret S. 2000a. Sequencing bands of Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer Analysis for Characterization and Microscale Distribution of Soil BacteriumPopulations Responding to Mercury Spiking. Appl Environ Microbiol
DOES OCEAN DUMPING AFFECT MARINE MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES?
Fig. 1
I-III: August 2009, April 2010, August 2010
A: nMDS Plots showing the bacterial community pattern at the dumping center( ); dumping surrounding (1-3km) ( );
streams (6-12km) ( ) and reference( ) (Jaccard Index).
B: Biplots showing intersample distances (RDA) of bacterial community fingerprints (ARISA*) using contextual data.
Arrows pointing to increasing values and correlation.
Community of dumping center ( ); dumping surrounding( );
streams( ); reference( ). Significant factors are red.
Parameters VIF >15 were excluded.
C: Variance partitioning: grain size contains < 20µm, 20- 63µm, 63-100µm, 100-200µm, 200-630µm, 630-1000µm, 1000-2000µm; organic pollutants contains Sums of PAH, PCB, HCH, organotin compounds, hydrocarbons, DDX;
Heavy metals contain cadmium, mercury, arsene, nickel, chrome plumb, copper; S,N,P,C contains sulphur, nitrogen, phosphor, TOC. P<0.05
CONCLUSION
RAPID CHANGES IN MICROBIAL COMMUNITY STRUCTURE DEMONSTRATE ITS POTENTIAL OF ADAPATION TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES QUICKLY
SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN THE COMMUNITY OF THE CENTRE AFTER DUMPING AND HIGH CONTRIBUTION OF ORGANIC POLLUTANTS (VARIANCE PARTIONING) GIVE EVIDENCE FOR
AN IMPACT OF CONTAMINANTS ON
COMMUNITIES IN THE IMMEDIATE DUMPING AREA
Introduction
Microbial communities of benthic marine habitats are highly affected by sediment composition. Mineral and organic compounds as well as geochemical processes influence their community structure and function. Environmental changes, as ocean dumping, lead most likely to an altered biogeochemistry and hence microbial community. The influence of dumping potentially polluted sediments on bacterial communities of “pristine” coastal sediments is barely investigated.
We examined the microbial communities over one year at a dumping site in the German Bight (North Sea, Germany) via ARISA fingerprints referring to analytical parameters.
Sampling site
-0.8 0.8
-0.80.8
20-63µm TOC 100-200µm
200 630µm 630 1000µm
1000 2000µm
nitrogen sulfur
phosphor hydrocarbons Sum PAH
Sum PCB
Sum HCH Sum DDX
Sum organotin compounds
cadmium
chrome copper
mercury
B
-0.6 1.0
-0.61.0
TOC <20µm
20 - 63µm 63-100µm
630 - 1000µm
1000-2000µm
nitrogen
hydrocarbons Sum PAH
Sum PCB
Sum HCH
Sum organotin compounds
arsene
plumb chrome
copper
mercury zinc
2D Stress: 0.23
I: 18 months since last dumping
III: six month since last dumping
2D Stress: 0.15
A
C
-0.8 1.0
-0.60.6
<20µm 20- 63µm 63-100µm 630 - 10000µm
1000-2000µm
nitrogen phosphor hydrocarbons
Sum PAH Sum PCB Sum HCH
Sum DDX
Sum organotin compounds
arsene cadmium
chrome copper
nickel mercury
B C
B
A C
II: two months since last dumping
2D Stress: 0.21
A
6.1%
11.1%
6.9%
7.7%
7%
10.1%
