Title |
Communities of ammonia oxidizers at different stages of Spartina alterniflora invasion in salt marshes of Yangtze River estuary |
Author |
Fei Xia1,2, Jemaneh Zeleke1,3, Qiang Sheng2, Ji-Hua Wu2, and Zhe-Xue Quan1* |
Address |
1Department of Microbiology and Microbial Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China, 2Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China, 3Department of Biology, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Wolaita Sodo University, Ethiopia |
Bibliography |
Journal of Microbiology, 53(5),311-320, 2015,
|
DOI |
10.1007/s12275-015-4660-0
|
Key Words |
Spartina alterniflora, ammonia oxidizers community,
amoA, salt marsh |
Abstract |
Spartina alterniflora, an aggressive invasive plant species at
the estuarine wetlands of China’s coasts, has become a major
threat to the natural ecosystems. To understand its potential
influence on nitrification processes, the community structures
and abundance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA)
and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) were investigated
using 454-pyrosequencing and quantitative real-time PCR
(qPCR) in S. alterniflora invading salt marsh sediments at
the Yangtze River estuary in Chongming island, Shanghai,
China. Copy numbers of archaeal and bacterial ammonia
monooxygenase subunit A (amoA) genes did not show accordant
shifts with S. alterniflora invasion in the two sampling
sites. However, the copy numbers of archaeal amoA
gene were higher in summer than in spring. Phylogenetic
analysis indicated that more than 90% of the archaeal and
92% of the bacterial amoA gene sequences were closely related
to marine group I.1a and the clusters 13 and 15 in
Nitrosospira lineage, respectively. The effect of different seasons
(spring and summer) was important for the abundance
variation of AOA, while different stages of S. alterniflora
invasion did not show significant effect for both AOA and
AOB. Variation of AOA community was significantly related
to total carbon (TC) and sulfate concentration (P < 0.05),
whereas the AOB community was significantly related to
sulfate concentration, total nitrogen (TN), TC and pH (P <
0.05). In conclusion, the abundance and diversity of ammonia
oxidizing microbial communities were not strongly
affected by S. alterniflora invasion. |