Temporal variations of resistomes in wastewater and river water

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses an urgent global challenge, with wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) acting as key hotspots where antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) accumulate, persist, and spread into the environment. While long-term ARG trends in WWTPs are increasingly documented, the role of short-term fluctuations, such as daily (diurnal) cycles linked to human activity, remains underexplored.To address this gap, we performed high-resolution temporal monitoring of microbial communities, ARGs, and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) across a WWTP-river system in South Africa. Samples were collected every 6 hours over 7 days and analysed using shotgun metagenomic sequencing and 16S rRNA gene profiling. These datasets provide a resource for studying the temporal dynamics of microbial communities and resistomes in wastewater environments, with implications for public health and water quality management.