Analyzing bacterial community structures associated with different materials in freshwater

, Al-Omari Jafar, Szabo Istvan, Szerdahelyi Soma Gábor, Szoboszlay Sandor.

Microplastics are abundant in freshwater environments, it provides a new surface for bacterial colonization. Up to now only a little is known about whether the bacterial communities associated with microplastics are plastic-specific or not, even less in freshwater environments. In our study a self-designed plastic colonizers, filled with five different materials, were used in to analyze bacterial community associated with wood, glass, plastic, biodegradable plastic, and stainless steel in freshwater. The different material containing plastic colonizers installed 50cm under water surface in a fishing lake located in Hungary. The colonizers were collected after two months, and additionally, the surrounding lake water were also sampled. Microbial communities associated with the five materials and the lake water were then analyzed by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing method. Amplicon sequencing results showed notable differences between bacterial communities associated with filling materials compared to the lake water microbial community. Verrucomicrobiales, Nostocales, Rhodobacterales, Bacteroidales, Clostridiales were dominated the bacterial community associated with degradable plastic, stainless steel, glass, plastic, and wood respectively. Furthermore, different filling materials have shown differences in terms of richness, evenness, and diversity. Comparing water bacterial community to the different materials associated ones, water showed the lowest value of species richness, evenness, and diversity. The highest species richness and diversity value were measured in case of plastic and biodegradable plastic. Aknowledgements: This research was supported by the Thematic Excellence Programme (NKFIH-831-10/2019 - Szent István University, 2019) awarded by the Ministry for Innovation and Technology.

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