2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference

March 13 - 15, 2022

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5/24/2021 | 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | STREAM MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING SHOW COMPLEX RESPONSES TO MULTIPLE STRESSORS IN WASTEWATER | Virtual Platform

STREAM MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING SHOW COMPLEX RESPONSES TO MULTIPLE STRESSORS IN WASTEWATER

Inputs of urban wastewater potentially have pervasive impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services in receiving freshwater habitats. Viewed through multiple disciplinary lenses, we combined field, flume, and laboratory experiments to investigate wastewater effects on microbial communities and organic-matter processing using a standardized decomposition assay. A mensurative field experiment showed that microbial respiration and decomposition rates were positively influenced by wastewater inputs via warming and nutrient enrichment, but with a notable exception: wastewater decreased the activation energy of decomposition, indicating a “slowing” of this fundamental ecosystem process in response to temperature. Next-generation sequencing of microbial communities showed that wastewater altered community structure, with significant compositional turnover and evidence of negative micropollutant influences on fungal richness. A series of experiments demonstrated how negative wastewater effects on ecosystem functioning are ‘masked’ by nutrients and wastewater-borne microbes. Taken together, our results affirm the multiple-stressor paradigm by describing how different aspects of wastewater (i.e., temperature, nutrients, microbes, and micropollutants) jointly influence biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in complex ways. The net increase in respiration rates driven by wastewater inputs have the potential to generate ecosystem ‘disservices’ via greater carbon evasion from streams and rivers.

Decomposition
Microbial ecology
Pollution

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Presenters/Authors

Francis Burdon (), Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden, francis.burdon@slu.se;