A study of microbial diversity in river biofilms

We performed field surveys of the bacterial community in the epilithic biofilms at the Shiting River in the upper Yangtze River drainage basin in the fall of 2021 and in the summer of 2022 as part of this study. Investigated were the effects of human activity and the long-term changes in the bacterial communities. We aimed to answer the following questions in particular: How do different human activities affect bacterial communities? What environmental factors most significantly influence the structure of bacterial communities? What ecological processes predominately make up bacterial communities? How do bacterial communities react to temporal and spatial changes?