ABSTRACT
Lakes in subtropical regions are highly susceptible to eutrophication due to the heavy rainfall, which causes significant runoff of pollutants (e.g., nutrients) to reach surface waters, altering the water quality and influencing the microbial communities that regulate the biogeochemical cycles within these ecosystems. Lake Cajititlán is a shallow, subtropical, and endorheic lake in western Mexico. Nutrient pollution from agricultural activity and wastewater discharge have affected the lake's water quality, leading the reservoir to a hypereutrophic state, resulting in episodes of fish mortality during the rainy season. This study investigated the temporal dynamics of bacterial communities within Lake Cajititlán and their genes associated with the nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and carbon biogeochemical cycles during the rainy season, as well as the influences of physicochemical and environmental variables on such dynamics. Significant temporal variations were observed in the composition of bacterial communities, of which Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas were the dominant genera. The climatological parameters that were most correlated with the bacterial communities and their functional profiles were pH, DO, ORP, turbidity, TN, EC, NH4 +, and NO3 -. The bacterial communities displayed variations in their functional composition for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur metabolisms during the sampling months. The bacterial communities within the lake are highly susceptible to nutrient loads and low DO levels during the rainy season. Bacterial communities had a higher relative abundance of genes associated with denitrification, nitrogen fixation, assimilatory sulfate reduction, cysteine, SOX system, and all phosphorus metabolic pathways. The results obtained here enrich our understanding of the bidirectional interactions between bacterial communities and major biogeochemical processes in eutrophic subtropical lakes.
ABSTRACT
Lake Cajititlán is a shallow body of water located in an endorheic basin in western Mexico. This lake receives excess fertilizer runoff from agriculture and approximately 2.3 Hm3 per year of poorly treated wastewater from three municipal treatment plants. Thirteen water quality parameters were monitored at five sampling points within the lake over 9 years. The objective of this work was to characterize the spatial and temporal variations of the water quality and to identify the sources of data variability in order to assess the influence and the impact of different natural and anthropogenic processes. One-way ANOVA tests, principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA), and discriminant analysis (DA) were implemented. The one-way ANOVA showed that biochemical oxygen demand and pH present statistically significant spatial variations and that alkalinity, total chloride, conductivity, chemical oxygen demand, total hardness, ammonia, pH, total dissolved solids, and temperature present statistically significant temporal variations. PCA results explained both natural and anthropogenic processes and their relationship with water quality data. The CA results suggested there is no significant spatial variation in the water quality of the lake because of lake mixing caused by wind. The most significant parameters for spatial variations were pH, NO3-, and NO2-, consistent with the configuration of point and nonpoint sources that affect the lake's water quality. The temporal DA results suggested that conductivity, hardness, NO2-, pH, and temperature were the most significant parameters to discriminate between seasons. The temporal behavior of these parameters was associated with the transport pathways of seasonal contaminants.
