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Recovery of Smelter-Impacted Peat and Sphagnum Moss: a Microbial Perspective

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Abstract

Peatlands store approximately one-half of terrestrial soil carbon and one-tenth of non-glacial freshwater. Some of these important ecosystems are located near heavy metal emitting smelters. To improve the understanding of smelter impacts and potential recovery after initial pollution controls in the 1970s (roughly 50 years of potential recovery), we sampled peatlands along a distance gradient of 134 km from a smelter in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, an area with over a century of nickel (Ni) and copper (Cu) mining activity. This work is aimed at evaluating potential shifts in bacterial and archaeal community structures in Sphagnum moss and its underlying peat within smelter-impacted poor fens. In peat, total Ni and Cu concentrations were higher (0.062–0.067 and 0.110–0.208 mg/g, respectively) at sites close to the smelter and exponentially dropped with distance from the smelter. This exponential decrease in Ni concentrations was also observed in Sphagnum. 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing showed that peat and Sphagnum moss host distinct microbiomes with peat accommodating a more diverse community structure. The microbiomes of Sphagnum were dominated by Proteobacteria (62.5%), followed by Acidobacteria (11.9%), with no observable trends with distance from the smelter. Dominance of Acidobacteria (32.4%) and Proteobacteria (29.6%) in peat was reported across all sites. No drift in taxonomy was seen across the distance gradient or from the reference sites, suggesting a potential microbiome recovery toward that of the reference peatlands microbiomes after decades of pollution controls. These results advance the understanding of peat and Sphagnum moss microbiomes, as well as depict the sensitivities and the resilience of peatland ecosystems.

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Data Availability

Data inquiries can be provided by the corresponding author: James Seward.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to recognize Emily Smenderova, Mikkealla Hurley, Kevin Adkinson, and Edward Kellaway for their help and contributions to this project.

Funding

Funding was provided from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Collaborative Research and Development Grant CRDPJ/509182-2017) to Nathan Basiliko, Shaun Watmough, Peter Beckett, Erik Emilson, and others. James Seward is also grateful for international tuition fee waiver support from the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Laurentian University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vale Living with Lakes Centre and the School of Natural Sciences, Laurentian University, 935 Ramsey Lake Rd, Sudbury, ON, P3E 2C6, Canada

    James Seward & Peter Beckett

  2. Department of Biology, Appalachian State University, 572 Rivers Street, Boone, NC, 28608, USA

    Suzanna Bräuer

  3. Department of Geography, Université Laval, Pavillon Abitibi-Price, Quebec, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Pascale Roy-Léveillée

  4. Natural Resources Canada, Great Lakes Forestry Centre, 1219 Queen St. East, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, P6A 2E5, Canada

    Erik Emilson

  5. School of the Environment, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

    Shaun Watmough

  6. Department of Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Rd., Thunder Bay, ON, P7B 5E1, Canada

    Nathan Basiliko

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Contributions

James Seward, Nathan Basiliko, and Peter Beckett contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analyses were performed by James Seward, Suzanna Bräuer, Erik Emilson, Shaun Watmough, and Pascale Roy-Léveillée. The first draft of the manuscript was written by James Seward, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to James Seward.

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Seward, J., Bräuer, S., Beckett, P. et al. Recovery of Smelter-Impacted Peat and Sphagnum Moss: a Microbial Perspective. Microb Ecol 86, 2894–2903 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-023-02289-5

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