Control of Hydraulic Load on Bacterioplankton Diversity in Cascade Hydropower Reservoirs, Southwest China

Hydroelectric reservoirs are highly regulated ecosystems, where the understanding on bacterioplankton has been very limited so far. In view of significant changes in river hydrological conditions by dam construction, hydraulic load (i.e., the ratio of mean water depth to water retention time) was as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Microbial ecology 2020-10, Vol.80 (3), p.537-545
Main Authors: Yang, Meiling, Shi, Jie, Wang, Baoli, Xiao, Jing, Li, Wanzhu, Liu, Cong-Qiang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bacterial Physiological Phenomena
Bacterioplankton
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Cascading
China
Composition
Dam construction
Dissolved oxygen
Ecological effects
Ecology
Environmental factors
Geoecology/Natural Processes
Hydraulic loading
Hydraulics
Hydroelectric power
Hydrology
Lakes - analysis
Lakes - microbiology
Life Sciences
Microbial Ecology
Microbiology
MICROBIOLOGY OF AQUATIC SYSTEMS
Microbiota - physiology
Nanoplankton
Nature Conservation
Next-generation sequencing
Plankton - physiology
Reservoirs
Retention time
Rivers
Water circulation
Water column
Water depth
Water Quality/Water Pollution
Water Supply
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Summary:Hydroelectric reservoirs are highly regulated ecosystems, where the understanding on bacterioplankton has been very limited so far. In view of significant changes in river hydrological conditions by dam construction, hydraulic load (i.e., the ratio of mean water depth to water retention time) was assumed to control bacterioplankton diversity in cascading hydropower reservoirs. To evaluate this hypothesis, we investigated bacterioplankton composition and diversity using high-throughput sequencing and related environmental variables in eleven reservoirs on the Wujiang River, Southwest China. Our results showed a decrease of bacterioplankton diversity index with an increase of reservoir hydraulic load. This is because hydraulic load governs dissolved oxygen variation in the water column, which is a key factor shaping bacterioplankton composition in these hydroelectric reservoirs. In contrast, bacterioplankton abundance was mainly affected by nutrient-related environmental factors. Therefore, from a hydrological perspective, hydraulic load is a decisive factor for the bacterioplankton diversity in the hydroelectric reservoirs. This study can improve the understanding of reservoir bacterial ecology, and the empirical relationship between hydraulic load and bacterioplankton diversity index will help to quantitatively evaluate ecological effects of river damming.
ISSN:0095-3628
1432-184X
DOI:10.1007/s00248-020-01523-8