Bacterial response to sharp geochemical gradients caused by acid mine drainage intrusion Raw sequence reads

A unique terrace with sharp gradient of environmental conditions was selected to study the microbial response and survival strategies to the extreme environments introduced by acid mine drainage (AMD) contamination. A combination of geochemical analyses, metagenomic sequencing, in-situ microcosm setups, and statistical analyses were used to investigate the environment-microbe interactions. The microbial communities and metabolic potentials along the terrace were studied by focusing on the genes associated with C, N, S cycling and metal resistance. Results show that the variations of geochemical parameters substantially shaped the microbial communities. Autotrophic microorganisms prevailed in more contaminated fields while heterotrophic microorganisms dominated in less contaminated fields. Sharp environmental gradients also impacted the metabolic potentials, especially for C, N, and S cycling. Although the relative abundances of carbon fixing genes did not significantly vary along the environmental gradients, the taxa for carbon fixation varied significantly in more contaminated fields versus less contaminated fields, indicating the effects of AMD contamination on the autotrophic microbial communities. AMD input also influenced the N cycling, especially for nitrogen fixation and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA). Nitrogen fixation as an important biogeochemical process in mining environments is of great interest and ex situ experiments were undertaken to evaluate the effects of AMD contamination on nitrogen fixation rates. Random Forest (RF) analysis indicated that nitrate, pH, total N, TOC exhibited positive correlations with the rates of nitrogen fixation while total Fe, Fe(III), and sulfate showed negative effects. TOC were identified as one of the most important factors affecting the DNRA. In addition, Fe- and S-related environmental parameters showed significant positive effects on the genes associated with dissimilatory sulfate reduction. The current study provides an understanding for microbial response to AMD contamination and lays the foundation for future potential AMD bioremediation.