Characteristics of dissolved organic matter during the cyanobacterial degradation in Chaohu Lake, China

Abstract

The actual DOM in Chaohu Lake was used to feed cyanobacterial to explore the changes of microbial communities, fluorescence spectral characteristics and molecular composition of DOM during the degradation of cyanobacteria. It is found that cyanobacterial grow periodically depending on the concentration of nutrients with the decreasing concentration of nutrient salts. Both Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria have strong correlation with algae growth. Bacteroidetes has a positive correlation with algae growth, relationship on the contrary, Actinobacteria has a negative relationship. The humus-like components in the four groups are similar, but the protein-like component (C3) shows periodic changes with the life process of cyanobacteria. The average molecular weight of each sample detected by Orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometer increases slightly and the DOM increase aromaticity in the end. In this study, the molecule of Carboxyl-Rich Alicyclic Molecules (CRAM) is difficult to be done by photodegradation and biodegradation in the early periods, but some molecules of CRAM are selectively degraded by microorganisms in the final period. The growth of cyanobacterial lead to increasing the concentration of protein-like and carbohydrate-like molecule of DOM in the water. In the final stage, the molecule group of CHO disappear significantly and the molecule group of heteroatomic group increase. HIGHLIGHTS Dynamic changes of DOM and microbial communities during the proliferation and decline of live cyanobacteria through incubation.; DOM characteristics are analyzed by ultra-high-resolution mass spectrometry and EEMs-PARAFAC.; Incubating a single dominant algal species can simplify the complex ecological processes in nature, providing a more intuitive representation of the impact of dominant algae on DOM.;

Keywords

• cyanobacterial degradation
• dissolved organic matter (dom)
• fluorescence analysis
• microbial communities
• orbitrap-ms