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Stronger Geographic Limitations Shape a Rapid Turnover and Potentially Highly Connected Network of Core Bacteria on Microplastics
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Core bacterial communities on microplastics were investigated across river ecosystems, revealing that geographic factors strongly limited microbial sharing between sites and that plastic-associated microbiota turned over rapidly along river gradients. The findings suggest that microplastics in rivers carry largely location-specific bacterial assemblages rather than universally dispersed communities.
Core microbiota is shared microbial taxa within the same habitat, which is important for understanding the stable and consistent components of the complex microbial assembly. However, information on the microplastic core bacteria from the river ecosystems is poor. Here, we investigated the composition and function of microplastic core bacteria from the Three Gorges Reservoir area along the approximate 662 km of the Yangtze River via full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing, compared with those in water, sediment, and soil. The results showed that the spatial turnover of bacterial communities in four habitats supported deterministic processes dominated by niche differentiation, which shaped their core bacteria. The composition and function of microplastic core bacteria were significantly different from those in the other three habitats. Rhodobacteraceae was the main component of microplastic core bacteria, while the main component of core bacteria in water, sediment, and soil were Burkholderiaceae (21.90%), Burkholderiaceae (5.01%), Nitrosomonadaceae (4.61%), respectively. Furthermore, microplastic core bacteria had stronger geographic limitations along the Yangtze River in the Three Gorges Reservoir area. Stronger geographic limitations shaped the rapid community turnover and a potentially more connected network for the microplastic core bacteria than water, sediment, and soil. More importantly, microplastic core bacteria had strong potential functions of drug resistance and could cause risks to ecosystems and human health. Microplastic core bacteria were mainly influenced by sediment core bacteria, although the bacteria colonizing on microplastics could be from all the contact environments and original sources. These findings provide important insights into the composition, function, and association of microplastic core bacteria with their surrounding environment.
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