Role of Microorganisms in the Hydrocarbon Balance in the Highly Productive System of the Chernavka Salt River (Elton Region)
摘要
Primary production of phototrophic communities was determined in the shallow Chernavka River, which flows into the self-settling Lake Elton: planktonic—from 0.025 to 0.256 mg C/(L h), benthic—from 9.6 to 12.5 mg C/(dm3 h), algal (Ulva-thread algae) and cyanobacterial mats—from 4.6 to 8.76 mg C/(dm3 h). The rate of dark CO2 assimilationvaried from 14 to 31.8 mg C/(L day) in the water and from 2.6 to 69 mg C/(dm3 day) in the sediments, indicating a high variability of heterotrophic processes. High concentrations of organic compounds in surface waters were found; for lipids, aliphatic hydrocarbons, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons they averaged 692, 80 and 0.79 μg/L, respectively. The composition of aliphatic hydrocarbons in the sediments was characterized by planktonogenic low molecular weight homologues n-C15–C17 and a sharp increase in the series of odd high molecular weight alkanes, whereas the composition of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons was characterized by an increased proportion of naphthalene. Predominant sequences in the 16S rRNA gene library obtained for the sediments belonged to Pseudomonadota (69.09%), Bacteroidota (11.64%) and Chloroflexota (7.92%) phyla.