Affiliations: Environment Stimulation and Pollution Control State
Key Laboratory, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tsinghua
University, Beijing, 100084, China
Abstract: The changes of structural and functional parameters of aquatic
microbial communities in continuous water on campus of Tsinghua University,
China are investigated by polyurethane foam unit (PFU) method. The measured
compositions of the communities include alga, protozoa, and some metazoa (such
as rotifers). The measured indicators of water quality include water
temperature, pH value, dissolved oxygen (DO), potassium permanganate
index(COD_{Mn}), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP)
and chlorophyll-a (Chla). The trophic level, expressed by the trophic level
indices (TLIc), is assessed with analytic hierarchy process and principal
component analysis (AHP-PCA) method. The changing trends of the structural and
functional parameters of aquatic microbial communities, such as Margalef index
of diversity (D), Shannon-weaver index of diversity (H), Heterotropy index (HI),
number of species when the colonization gets
equilibrium (S_{eq}), colonizing speed constant (G) and time
spent when 90 percent of S_{eq} colonized in
PFU (T_{90%}), are also analyzed. The experimental results
showed the succession of aquatic microbial communities along the water flow is
consistent with the water quality changes, so the parameters of microbial
community can reflect the changes of water quality from the ecological
view.
Keywords: succession, aquatic microbial community, polyurethane foam unit (PFU) method, water quality, biodiversity, biomonitoring
