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Resilience of microbial communities after hydrogen peroxide treatment of a eutrophic lake to suppress harmful cyanobacterial blooms
Piel, T; Sandrini, G.; Muyzer, G.; Brussaard, C.P.D.; Slot, P.C.; van Herk, M.J.; Huisman, J.; Visser, P.M. (2021). Resilience of microbial communities after hydrogen peroxide treatment of a eutrophic lake to suppress harmful cyanobacterial blooms. Microorganisms 9(7): 1495. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9071495

Additional data:
In: Microorganisms. MDPI: Basel. e-ISSN 2076-2607, more
Peer reviewed article  

Available in  Authors 

Author keywords
    cyanobacterial blooms; 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing; hydrogen peroxide; microbial community; microbial diversity; resilience; ecosystem functioning; oxidative stress; lake treatment

Authors  Top 
  • Piel, T.
  • Sandrini, G.
  • Muyzer, G., more
  • Brussaard, C.P.D., more
  • Slot, P.C.
  • van Herk, M.J.
  • Huisman, J.
  • Visser, P.M.

Abstract

    Applying low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H2O 2) to lakes is an emerging method to mitigate harmfulcyanobacterial blooms. While cyanobacteria are very sensitive to H2O2, little is known about the impacts of these H 2O2 treatments on other members of the microbial community. In this study, we investigated changes in microbial community composition during two lake treatments with low H2O2 concentrations (target: 2.5 mg L−1) and in two series ofcontrolled lake incubations. The results show that the H2O2 treatments effectively suppressed the dominant cyanobacteria Aphanizomenon klebahnii, Dolichospermum sp. and, to a lesser extent, Planktothrix agardhii. Microbial community analysis revealed that several Proteobacteria (e.g., Alteromonadales, Pseudomonadales, Rhodobacterales) profited from the treatments, whereas some bacterial taxa declined (e.g., Verrucomicrobia). In particular, the taxa known to be resistant to oxidative stress (e.g., Rheinheimera) strongly increased in relative abundance during the first 24 h after H 2O2 addition, but subsequently declined again. Alpha and beta diversity showed a temporary decline but recovered within a few days, demonstrating resilience of the microbial community. The predicted functionality of the microbial community revealed a temporary increase of anti-ROS defenses and glycoside hydrolases but otherwise remained stable throughout the treatments. We conclude that the use of low concentrations of H2O2 to suppress cyanobacterial blooms provides a short-term pulse disturbance but is not detrimental to lake microbial communities and their ecosystem functioning.


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