Bacterial diversity reports contamination around the Ichkeul Lake (Tunisia)

Worldwide, coastal areas concentrate the major human populations, which activities threaten the aquatic ecosystems. Since microbial communities provide important ecosystem services in aquatic environments, it is crucial to determine the impact of pollutants on their composition and structure in the aquatic network as a whole, including aquatic ecosystems, tributaries and surrounding soils. Microbial ecology approaches provide useful information for developing microbial monitoring tools reporting on the effect of environmental stressors, which are still in their infancy. Here, chemical and microbial molecular (16S rRNA gene meta-barcoding) approaches were combined in order to determine the impact of pollutants on microbial assemblages inhabiting the aquatic network around the Ichkeul Lake (Tunisia), an area highly impacted by human activities. Samples were collected along soil/river/lake continuum in three stations around the Ichkeul Lake in summer and winter.