TY - JOUR A1 - Eckert, Ester M. A1 - Di Cesare, Andrea A1 - Kettner, Marie Therese A1 - Arias-Andres, Maria A1 - Fontaneto, Diego A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Corno, Gianluca T1 - Microplastics increase impact of treated wastewater on freshwater microbial community JF - Environmental pollution N2 - Plastic pollution is a major global concern with several million microplastic particles entering every day freshwater ecosystems via wastewater discharge. Microplastic particles stimulate biofilm formation (plastisphere) throughout the water column and have the potential to affect microbial community structure if they accumulate in pelagic waters, especially enhancing the proliferation of biohazardous bacteria. To test this scenario, we simulated the inflow of treated wastewater into a temperate lake using a continuous culture system with a gradient of concentration of microplastic particles. We followed the effect of microplastics on the microbial community structure and on the occurrence of integrase 1 (intl), a marker associated with mobile genetic elements known as a proxy for anthropogenic effects on the spread of antimicrobial resistance genes. The abundance of intl increased in the plastisphere with increasing microplastic particle concentration, but not in the water surrounding the microplastic particles. Likewise, the microbial community on microplastic was more similar to the original wastewater community with increasing microplastic concentrations. Our results show that microplastic particles indeed promote persistence of typical indicators of microbial anthropogenic pollution in natural waters, and substantiate that their removal from treated wastewater should be prioritised. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Microplastics KW - Anthropogenic pollution KW - Treated wastewater KW - Freshwater microbial communities KW - Integrase 1 KW - Biofilm Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2017.11.070 SN - 0269-7491 SN - 1873-6424 VL - 234 SP - 495 EP - 502 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kettner, Marie Therese A1 - Rojas-Jimenez, Keilor A1 - Oberbeckmann, Sonja A1 - Labrenz, Matthias A1 - Großart, Hans-Peter T1 - Microplastics alter composition of fungal communities in aquatic ecosystems JF - Environmental microbiology N2 - Despite increasing concerns about microplastic (MP) pollution in aquatic ecosystems, there is insufficient knowledge on how MP affect fungal communities. In this study, we explored the diversity and community composition of fungi attached to polyethylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS) particles incubated in different aquatic systems in north-east Germany: the Baltic Sea, the River Warnow and a wastewater treatment plant. Based on next generation 18S rRNA gene sequencing, 347 different operational taxonomic units assigned to 81 fungal taxa were identified on PE and PS. The MP-associated communities were distinct from fungal communities in the surrounding water and on the natural substrate wood. They also differed significantly among sampling locations, pointing towards a substrate and location specific fungal colonization. Members of Chytridiomycota, Cryptomycota and Ascomycota dominated the fungal assemblages, suggesting that both parasitic and saprophytic fungi thrive in MP biofilms. Thus, considering the worldwide increasing accumulation of plastic particles as well as the substantial vector potential of MP, especially these fungal taxa might benefit from MP pollution in the aquatic environment with yet unknown impacts on their worldwide distribution, as well as biodiversity and food web dynamics at large. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.13891 SN - 1462-2912 SN - 1462-2920 VL - 19 SP - 4447 EP - 4459 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wurzbacher, Christian A1 - Attermeyer, Katrin A1 - Kettner, Marie Therese A1 - Flintrop, Clara A1 - Warthmann, Norman A1 - Hilt, Sabine A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Monaghan, Michael T. T1 - DNA metabarcoding of unfractionated water samples relates phyto-, zoo- and bacterioplankton dynamics and reveals a single-taxon bacterial bloom JF - Environmental microbiology reports N2 - Most studies of aquatic plankton focus on either macroscopic or microbial communities, and on either eukaryotes or prokaryotes. This separation is primarily for methodological reasons, but can overlook potential interactions among groups. Here we tested whether DNA metabarcoding of unfractionated water samples with universal primers could be used to qualitatively and quantitatively study the temporal dynamics of the total plankton community in a shallow temperate lake. Significant changes in the relative proportions of normalized sequence reads of eukaryotic and prokaryotic plankton communities over a 3-month period in spring were found. Patterns followed the same trend as plankton estimates measured using traditional microscopic methods. The bloom of a conditionally rare bacterial taxon belonging to Arcicella was characterized, which rapidly came to dominate the whole lake ecosystem and would have remained unnoticed without metabarcoding. The data demonstrate the potential of universal DNA metabarcoding applied to unfractionated samples for providing a more holistic view of plankton communities. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-2229.12540 SN - 1758-2229 VL - 9 SP - 383 EP - 388 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER -