Response of Spatial Patterns of Denitrifying Bacteria Communities to Water Properties in the Stream Inlets at Dianchi Lake, China

Streams are an important sink for anthropogenic N owing to their hydrological connections with terrestrial systems, but main factors influencing the community structure and abundance of denitrifiers in stream water remain unclear. To elucidate the potential impact of varying water properties of different streams on denitrifiers, the abundance and community of three denitrifying genes coding for nitrite (nirK, nirS) and nitrous oxide (nosZ) reductase were investigated in 11 streams inlets at the north part of Dianchi Lake. The DGGE results showed the significant pairwise differences in community structure of nirK, nirS, and nosZ genes among different streams. The results of redundancy analysis (RDA) confirmed that nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, pH, and temperature in waters were the main environmental factors leading to a significant alteration in the community structure of denitrifiers among different streams. The denitrifying community size was assessed by quantitative PCR (qPCR) of the nirS, nirK, and nosZ genes. The abundance of nirK, nirS, and nosZ was positively associated with concentrations of total N (TN) and PO(4) (3−) (p < 0.001). The difference in spatial patterns between nirK and nirS community diversity, in combination with the spatial distribution of the nirS/nirK ratio, indicated the occurrence of habitat selection for these two types of denitrifiers in the different streams. The results indicated that the varying of N species and PO(4) (3−) together with pH and temperature would be the main factors shaping the community structure of denitrifiers. Meanwhile, the levels of N in water, together with PO(4) (3−), tend to affect the abundance of denitrifiers.