Unveiling Fungal Community Structure along Different Levels of Anthropic Disturbance in a South American Subtropical Lagoon.

Studies of fungal communities through amplicon metagenomics in aquatic environments, particularly in freshwater ecosystems, are still relatively recent. Unfortunately, many of these water bodies are facing growing threats from human expansion, such as effluent discharge from various human activities. As a result, these effluents have the potential to significantly alter the characteristics of water bodies and, subsequently, impact the diversity of their resident microorganisms. In this context, our objective was to investigate whether the fungal community structure varies according to the presence of different anthropic disturbances. We expect (i) the diversity of fungi will be greater and (ii) more specific unique operational taxonomic units (OTUs) related to each ecotonal system will be found compared to other sites of a lagoon. The study was conducted in the Tramandaí Lagoon (subtropical southern Brazil) at four distinct sampling points (estuary, middle of the lagoon, crop field area, and near a residential area where the Tramandaí River flows into the lagoon). As expected, the estuary and residential zones, which are ecotones, exhibited greater fungal diversity and more specific OTUs compared to the middle of the lagoon and crop field area. Moreover, a substantial proportion of fungal taxa could not be identified at the genus level, with many only classified at the phylum level, indicating potential new lineages. These findings underscore our limited understanding of the subtropical freshwater mycobiota.

Salty freshwater macrophytes: the effects of salinization in freshwaters upon non-halophyte aquatic plants.

Salinization is a threat that affects aquatic ecosystems worldwide. As primary producers, freshwater macrophytes are of paramount importance in these ecosystems, however, information regarding the potential impacts of salinization upon these organisms is still scarce. In this review we provide a comprehensive and updated discussion of how freshwater macrophytes deal with salinity increase in freshwaters. We reviewed the salinity tolerance of widespread non-halophyte macrophytes through an overview of salinity tolerance mechanisms, their tolerance classification, and salinity effects at different levels of organization: from individuals to ecosystems. Thus, we demonstrated that widespread macrophytes that inhabit freshwaters display efficient salinity tolerance to salinity levels between 5 and 10 g L-1, and only a few species display tolerance to salinities higher than 10 g L-1. Widespread macrophytes demonstrated salinity tolerance of approximately 5 g L-1. Widespread macrophytes demonstrated salinity tolerance of approximately 5 g L-1. Emergent, floating and submerged species showed no significant difference in salinity tolerance. Salinity stress symptoms in freshwater macrophytes are somewhat similar to those of terrestrial plants and can show up even at slight salinity increases. Salinities higher than 1 g L-1 can negatively affect both physiology and diversity of non-halophyte macrophytes and cause long-term - and not well understood - changes in freshwater ecosystems. Salinization of freshwater ecosystems, among others threats, in combination with climate change, raise concerns about the future ecological status of freshwater ecosystems and the services they can provide.

High MICs for antifungal agents in yeasts from an anthropized lagoon in South America.

The lagoons are fragile ecosystems used by several species as a refuge and breeding area, and it is also a place where certain communities practice fishing activity. With increasing urbanization around this ecosystem, pesticides used in agriculture and untreated urban wastewater are drained into the river basin, resulting in the dispersion of organic matter and antifungals used by the population and farmers. These may favor the selection of resistant pathogens directly into the environment, a concern since several fungi have emerged as pathogens in the last decades. In this study, we investigated the presence in an impacted lagoon by potentially resistant yeasts to antifungal agents. We evaluated their capacity for producing extracellular enzymes that could act as virulence factors. Water samples from the Tramandaí lagoon were analyzed for the presence of pesticides using the SPE-LC-ESI-MS/MS. Tricyclazole, carbendazim, azoxystrobin, thiabendazole, and tebuconazole were found. Twenty-eight yeast species were isolated, including the multidrug-resistant Candida haemulonii, and species with high minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) for clinical antifungal agents. Around 93% of the isolates had MIC values above the resistance breakpoints established for Candida species for at least two antifungal agents. And 27% had high MICs values for fluconazole, terbinafine, amphotericin B, and caspofungin. Tebuconazole MICs values were highly associated with MICs for fluconazole, terbinafine, and amphotericin B, and significant correlations between high MICs for antifungal agents and enzyme production were found. The results indicated that the lagoon is a reservoir of resistance genes and a potential source for fungal infection, highlighting the importance of the One Health approach and the integrated vision of the ecosystem when managing these environments.

Effects of seasonality, trophic state and landscape properties on CO2 saturation in low-latitude lakes and reservoirs.

The role of tropical lakes and reservoirs in the global carbon cycle has received increasing attention in the past decade, but our understanding of its variability is still limited. The metabolism of tropical systems may differ profoundly from temperate systems due to the higher temperatures and wider variations in precipitation. Here, we investigated the spatial and temporal patterns of the variability in the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) and its drivers in a set of 102 low-latitude lakes and reservoirs that encompass wide gradients of precipitation, productivity and landscape properties (lake area, perimeter-to-area ratio, catchment size, catchment area-to-lake area ratio, and types of catchment land use). We used multiple regressions and structural equation modeling (SEM) to determine the direct and indirect effects of the main in-lake variables and landscape properties on the water pCO2 variance. We found that these systems were mostly supersaturated with CO2 (92% spatially and 72% seasonally) regardless of their trophic status and landscape properties. The pCO2 values (9-40,020 µatm) were within the range found in tropical ecosystems, and higher (p < 0.005) than pCO2 values recorded from high-latitude ecosystems. Water volume had a negative effect on the trophic state (r = -0.63), which mediated a positive indirect effect on pCO2 (r = 0.4), representing an important negative feedback in the context of climate change-driven reduction in precipitation. Our results demonstrated that precipitation drives the pCO2 seasonal variability, with significantly higher pCO2 during the rainy season (F = 16.67; p < 0.001), due to two potential main mechanisms: (1) phytoplankton dilution and (2) increasing inputs of terrestrial CO2 from the catchment. We conclude that at low latitudes, precipitation is a major climatic driver of pCO2 variability by influencing volume variations and linking lentic ecosystems to their catchments.

Asterionellopsis tropicalis (Bacillariophyceae): a new tropical species found in diatom accumulations.

The diatom Asterionellopsis glacialis sensu lato forms high-density patches in the surf zone of some sandy beaches worldwide and was until recently considered a cosmopolitan species. With the recent description of four cryptic species, the identity of specimens found in these accumulations remains uncertain. In this study, diatom patches were sampled from two sandy beaches of the Brazilian coast: one tropical (Futuro Beach, 3° S; 38° W) and one subtropical (Cassino Beach, 32° S; 52° W). Fine structure of frustules and the sequencing of three phylogenetic markers revealed the subtropical strains to be A. guyunusae and the tropical strains to be a new species, here described as Asterionellopsis tropicalis sp. nov. A. tropicalis was differentiated morphologically by the number of striae in 10 µm at the foot pole and head (39-44; 38-45, respectively), from A. lenisilicea (46-55; 46-64), A. maritima (46-51; 46-60), and A. thurstonii (42-58; 55-70). The number of striae at the head region of the valvocopula (10 µm) helped to distinguish A. tropicalis (56-62) from A. guyunusae (61-64), but A. tropicalis was morphologically undistinguishable from A. glacialis. The sequence divergence from other identified Asterionellopsis species was 13%-16% (Cox1), 11%-12% (5.8S + ITS2) and 2%-6% (RbcL), and A. tropicalis formed a distinct monophyletic clade with high support in all analyzed phylogenetic trees (single or multi-locus). This work will aid in the understanding of the ecological and physiological diversity of diatom patches that are key to the trophic webs of sandy beaches.

Bacterial community composition and physiological shifts associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the Patos Lagoon estuary.

The Patos Lagoon estuary is a microtidal system that is strongly regulated by atmospheric forces, including remote large-scale phenomena such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which affects precipitation patterns in the region. In this study, we investigated whether the bacterial community composition (BCC), community-level physiological profiles (CLPP), and a set of environmental variables were affected by the transition from a moderate El Niño to a strong La Niña event (June 2010 to May 2011). We identified two distinct periods: a period following El Niño that was characterized by low salinity and high concentrations of NO3(-) and PO4(-3) and low molecular weight (LMW) substances and a period following La Niña during which salinity, temperature, and transparency increased and the concentrations of nutrients and LMW substances decreased. The BCC and CLPP were significantly altered in response to this transition. This is the first study addressing the effect of ENSO on bacteria at the community level in an estuarine system. Our results suggest that there is a link between ENSO and bacteria, indicating the role of climate variability in bacterial activities and, hence, the cycling of organic matter by these microorganisms.

Stability of bacterial composition and activity in different salinity waters in the dynamic Patos Lagoon estuary: evidence from a lagrangian-like approach.

We employed a Lagrangian-like sampling design to evaluate bacterial community composition (BCC--using temporal temperature gel gradient electrophoresis), community-level physiological profiles (CLPP--using the EcoPlate™ assay), and influencing factors in different salinity waters in the highly dynamic Patos Lagoon estuary (southern Brazil) and adjacent coastal zone. Samples were collected monthly by following limnetic-oligohaline (0-1), mesohaline (14-16), and polyhaline (28-31) waters for 1 year. The BCC was specific for each salinity range, whereas the CLPPs were similar for mesohaline and polyhaline waters, and both were different from the limnetic-oligohaline samples. The limnetic-oligohaline waters displayed an oxidation capacity for almost all organic substrates tested, whereas the mesohaline and polyhaline waters presented lower numbers of oxidized substrates, suggesting that potential activities of bacteria increased from the polyhaline to oligohaline waters. However, the polyhaline samples showed a higher utilization of some simple carbohydrates, amino acids, and polymers, indicating a shortage of inorganic nutrients (especially nitrogen) and organic substrates in coastal saltwater. The hypothesis of bacterial nitrogen limitation was corroborated by the higher Nuse index (an EcoPlate™-based nitrogen limitation indicator) in the polyhaline waters and the importance of NO(2)(-), NO(3)(-), low-molecular-weight substances, and the low-molecular-weight:high-molecular-weight substances ratio, indicated by the canonical correspondence analyses (CCAs). Our results demonstrate the important stability of microbial community composition and potential metabolic activity in the different water salinity ranges, which are independent of the region and time of the year of sample collection in the estuary. This is a quite unexpected result for a dynamic environment such as the Patos Lagoon estuary.

Lower respiration in the littoral zone of a subtropical shallow lake.

Macrophytes are important sources of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to littoral zones of lakes, but this DOC is believed to be mostly refractory to bacteria, leading to the hypothesis that bacterial metabolism is different in littoral and pelagic zones of a large subtropical shallow lake. We tested this hypothesis by three approaches: (I) dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) accumulation in littoral and pelagic water; (II) O(2) consumption estimate for a cloud of points (n = 47) covering the entire lake; (III) measurement of O(2) consumption and CO(2) accumulation in dark bottles, pCO(2) in the water, lake-atmosphere fluxes of CO(2) (fCO(2)) and a large set of limnological variables at 19 sampling points (littoral and pelagic zones) during seven extensive campaigns. For the first two approaches, DIC and O(2) consumption were consistently lower in the littoral zone, and O(2) consumption increased marginally with the distance to the nearest shore. For the third approach, we found in the littoral zone consistently lower DOC, total phosphorus (TP), and chlorophyll a, and a higher proportion of low-molecular-weight substances. Regression trees confirmed that high respiration (O(2) consumption and CO(2) production) was associated to lower concentration of low-molecular-weight substances, while pCO(2) was associated to DOC and TP, confirming that CO(2) supersaturation occurs in an attempt to balance phosphorus deficiency of macrophyte substrates. Littoral zone fCO(2) showed a tendency to be a CO(2) sink, whereas the pelagic zone showed a tendency to act as CO(2) source to the atmosphere. The high proportion of low-molecular-weight, unreactive substances, together with lower DOC and TP may impose lower rates of respiration in littoral zones. This effect of perennial stands of macrophytes may therefore have important, but not yet quantified implications for the global carbon metabolism of these lakes, but other issues still need to be carefully addressed before rejecting the general belief that macrophytes are always beneficial to bacteria.