Comparative study on archaeal diversity in the sediments of two urban landscape water bodies

Urban lake sediment plays a very important role in waterbody ecosystems. It is the basis of nutrient cycling and material exchange between microorganisms and lake ecosystems. In this study, Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology was employed to detect the structure and species richness of Archaea in anoxic sediments of urban waterbodies (Aohai Lake and Kunming Lake) in Beijing, and the environmental factors (pH level, organic matter, available nitrogen and total nitrogen) affecting the structure and succession of archaeal communities were also investigated. The results showed that there were 13 classified archaeal phyla, and the most frequent archaeal species in the lakes were Bathyarchaeota (MCG), Euryarchaeota, Thaumarchaeota, Aenigmarchaeota, Hadesarchaea, Lokiarchaeota, and Parvarchaeota. The top ten most abundant genera in the two lakes were significantly associated with at least one environmental factor. The results of this study enrich the understanding of microbial diversity in urban eutrophic lake sediments in northern China.