Research
| Title： | Unraveling pathogen dynamics in rivers flowing into Taihu Lake: Insights from high-throughput sequencing and environmental correlations |
|---|---|
| First author： | Liu, Wenjing; Deng, Min; Wang, Yuren; Li, Lu; Senbati, Yeerken; Xue, Yunpeng; Song, Kang; Wu, Fengchang |
| Journal： | WATER RESEARCH X |
| Years： | 2025 |
| DOI： | 10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100406 |
| Abstract： | Rapid urbanization and industrialization have intensified microbial health risks in river-lake systems, yet regionspecific pathogen monitoring frameworks remain limited. We characterized pathogen communities in ten rivers flowing into Taihu Lake using a manually curated pathogen database combined with 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing (n = 28 sampling sites). A total of 38 potential pathogenic genera and 68 putative species were detected, with Mycobacterium (32.14 %) and Pseudomonas (16.76 %) being the most abundant. Pathogen risk prediction suggested that these taxa may pose potential health threats. Water samples exhibited significantly higher pathogen richness and diversity than sediments (P < 0.0001), and pathogen abundance declined along the river-lake continuum. Community composition was significantly associated with water temperature, pH, conductivity, and nutrient concentrations (all P < 0.05). Null model analyses indicated that stochastic processes predominated in community assembly, while deterministic selection was strongest at estuarine sites. These results suggest that pathogen distributions are jointly shaped by environmental filtering, hydrodynamic transport, and stochastic events such as dispersal limitation and ecological drift. Given the taxonomic resolution limitations of 16S rRNA amplicons, species-level assignments should be interpreted cautiously. Nevertheless, integrating amplicon sequencing with a pathogen-specific database provides a practical framework for early risk warning. This study advances understanding of spatial dynamics and ecological drivers of pathogen communities in river-lake networks and highlights the need for higher-resolution approaches, including metagenomics and virulence gene profiling, to refine microbial risk assessments in rapidly urbanizing watersheds. |
