Anthropogenic disturbance affects the structure of bacterial communities

Ager, Duane; Evans, Simon; Li, Hong; Lilley, Andrew K.; van der Gast, Christopher J.. 2010 Anthropogenic disturbance affects the structure of bacterial communities. Environmental Microbiology, 12 (3). 670-678. 10.1111/j.1462-2920.2009.02107.x

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Abstract/Summary

Patterns of taxa abundance distributions are the result of the combined effects of historical and biological processes and as such are central to ecology. It is accepted that a taxa abundance distribution for a given community of animals or plants following a perturbation will typically change in structure from one of high evenness to increasing dominance. Subsequently, such changes in evenness have been used as indicators of biological integrity and environmental assessment. Here, using replicated experimental treehole microcosms perturbed with different concentrations of the pollutant pentachlorophenol, we investigated whether changes in bacterial community structure would reflect the effects of anthropogenic stress in a similar manner to larger organisms. Community structure was visualized using rank– abundance plots fitted with linear regression models. The slopes of the regression models were used as a descriptive statistic of changes in evenness over time. Our findings showed that bacterial community structure reflected the impact and the recovery from an anthropogenic disturbance. In addition, the intensity of impact and the rate of recovery to preperturbation structure were dose-dependent. These properties of bacterial community structures may potentially provide a metric for environmental assessment and regulation.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1111/j.1462-2920.2009.02107.x
Programmes:	CEH Programmes pre-2009 publications > Biodiversity > BD01 Conservation and Restoration of Biodiversity > BD01.1 Distributions and abundance of taxa CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Biodiversity > BD Topic 3 - Managing Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in a Changing Environment > BD - 3.2 - Develop and test practical measures to ameliorate the effects ... CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Biodiversity > BD Topic 3 - Managing Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in a Changing Environment > BD - 3.1 - Develop methods to quantify the link between biodiversity ..
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Shore Hails
ISSN:	1462-2912
NORA Subject Terms:	Biology and Microbiology Ecology and Environment
Date made live:	25 Mar 2010 12:15 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/9519

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