Microbial diversity in polluted harbor sediments I: Bacterial community assessment based on four clone libraries of 16S rDNA

Bacteria, as the most abundant sediment organism, play a major role in the fate of pollutants. Therefore, many pollutant-related bacteria have been studied in harbor sediments, yet the entire bacterial profiles have not been reported. The bacterial diversity and community structures from sediments in Victoria Harbor (Hong Kong), including two polluted (VH and VHW) and two adjacent (open oceanic, TLC; estuary discharge affected, PC) sites, were characterized by analyses of four 16S rDNA clone libraries. Upon comparisons of RFLP patterns from 254 clones in the libraries, 178 unique phylotypes were retrieved. LIBSHUFF and Rarefaction analyses indicated that the sediment bacterial communities at the four sites showed high 16S rDNA richness and were significantly different from each other. Phylogenetic analysis of full-length 16S rDNA revealed 19 bacterial phyla in Victoria Harbor sediments. γ- and δ-proteobacteria, holophaga/acidobacteria, and planctomycetales were recorded in all the libraries. In addition, γ- and δ-proteobacteria were dominant at all sites (33.33–11.67%). Besides these two phyla, ε-proteobacteria, firmicutes, aminobacterium, holophaga/acidobacteria and bacteroidetes were judged to be major components of a given library since they constituted 10% or more of the total OTUs of the given library. The cyanobacteria, verrucomicrobia, β-proteobacteria, aminobacterium, chlorofiexi, and candidate division OP1, OP8 were detected in minor proportions in various libraries. A portion of the clones were only distantly related to sequences in the GenBank, suggesting bacteria in Victoria Harbor sediments were unique and diversified.