Geographical and Environmental Factors Differentially Shape Planktonic Microbial Community Assembly and Resistomes...

Area of Science:

• Environmental microbiology
• Ecotoxicology
• Genomics

Background:

• Urbanization intensifies pollution in rivers, leading to the spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs).
• Understanding continental-scale distribution and assembly of bacterial resistance in urban rivers remains limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the distribution patterns and community assembly mechanisms of planktonic microbiomes and their resistomes in Chinese urban rivers.
• To differentiate the roles of geographical and environmental factors in shaping microbial communities and resistomes.

Main Methods:

• Extensive sampling across nine representative urban rivers in China.
• Utilized amplicon and shotgun metagenomic sequencing, advanced bioinformatics, and multivariate statistics.
• Applied Phylogenetic-bin-based null model analysis (iCAMP) and cross-validated Mantel tests.

Main Results:

• Planktonic microbiomes showed spatial heterogeneity driven by dispersal limitation and drift.
• Planktonic resistomes exhibited more similar distribution patterns, controlled by deterministic processes.
• Geographic distance primarily regulated microbial community assembly, while temperature influenced resistome assembly.

Conclusions:

• Geographical and environmental factors distinctively shape urban river microbiomes and resistomes.
• Findings offer insights into ARG biogeography and community assembly for environmental management.
• Provides a basis for mitigating ARG spread from aquatic environments to humans.