Differentiated cognition of the effects of human activities on typical persistent organic pollutants and bacterioplankton community in drinking water source

Feng Zhang; Kangping Cui; Xinrui Yuan; Yuansheng Huang; Kaifeng Yu; Chen-Xuan Li; Xiangyu Zhang; Yihan Chen

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2024.118815

Differentiated cognition of the effects of human activities on typical persistent organic pollutants and bacterioplankton community in drinking water source

Environ Res. 2024 Mar 28;252(Pt 1):118815. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.118815. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Feng Zhang¹, Kangping Cui¹, Xinrui Yuan¹, Yuansheng Huang², Kaifeng Yu³, Chen-Xuan Li¹, Xiangyu Zhang¹, Yihan Chen⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China.
² College of Ecology and Environment, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830017, China.
³ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
⁴ School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China. Electronic address: yhchen@hfut.edu.cn.

PMID: 38555085
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.118815

Abstract

Accelerated urbanization in developing countries led to a typical gradient of human activities (low, moderate and high human activities), which affected the pollution characteristics and ecological functions of aquatic environment. However, the occurrence characteristics of typical persistent organic pollutants, including organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and bacterioplankton associated with the gradient of human activities in drinking water sources is still lacking. Our study focused on a representative case - the upper reaches of the Dongjiang River (Pearl River Basin, China), a drinking water source characterized by a gradient of human activities. A comprehensive analysis of PAHs, OCPs and bacterioplankton in the water phase was performed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and the Illumina platform. Moderate human activity could increase the pollution of OCPs and PAHs due to local agricultural activities. The gradient of human activities obviously influenced the bacterioplankton community composition and interaction dynamics, and low human activity resulted in low bacterioplankton diversity. Co-occurrence network analysis indicated that moderate human activity could promote a more modular organization of the bacterioplankton community. Structural equation models showed that nutrients could exert a negative influence on the composition of bacterioplankton, and this phenomenon did not change with the gradient of human activities. OCPs played a negative role in shaping bacterioplankton composition under the low and high human activities, but had a positive effect under the moderate human activity. In contrast, PAHs showed a strong positive effect on bacterioplankton composition under low and high human activities and a weak negative effect under moderate human activity. Overall, these results shed light on the occurrence characteristics of OCPs, PAHs and their ecological effects on bacterioplankton in drinking water sources along the gradient of human activities.

Keywords: Bacterioplankton community; Drinking water source; Human activities; Organochlorine pesticides; Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.