5 months ago
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A first-of-its-kind large-scale survey of bacterial communities crossed lakes and reservoirs successful the Eastern Ghats by scientists from LaCONES, CSIR–Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) successful Hyderabad, has revealed striking patterns of microbial diversity. Lakes wrong protected areas showed importantly higher bacterial richness, portion those adjacent concern zones exhibited reduced diversity.
The probe provides a broad microbial representation of the Eastern Ghats, underscoring the pivotal relation of bacteria successful sustaining h2o quality, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem resilience, said LaCONES CSIR-CCMB main idiosyncratic G. Umapathy connected Monday (December 1, 2025).
The Eastern Ghats, a discontinuous upland scope on India’s eastbound coast, is intersected by large rivers specified arsenic Krishna, Kaveri, Mahanadi, and Godavari. Climate alteration is simply a cardinal operator of microbial shifts, altering biogeochemical cycles successful aquatic systems, yet its interaction connected Eastern Ghats lakes remains poorly understood, helium noted.
Unique bacterial signature successful each lake
Using biology DNA (eDNA) from 40 sites crossed 23 waterbodies successful Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Odisha, the squad generated implicit a cardinal DNA reads per illustration to uncover hidden bacterial diversity. The study, published successful Global Ecology and Conservation, recovered that each water harboured a unsocial bacterial signature with minimal overlap, indicating beardown spatial structuring.
Role of uncommon bacterial species
Smaller waterbodies (<25 sq. km) showed the highest mean bacterial richness compared to mean and ample lakes. Rare bacterial species, though debased successful abundance, played captious roles successful pollutant degradation and stress-response pathways. Salinity and turbidity emerged arsenic cardinal biology drivers shaping microbial communities.
Picocyanobacterium Vulcanococcus, captious for nitrogen cycling, was widespread, with Chilika Lake showing the highest abundance, followed by Nagarjunasagar, Peddadevulpally Lake, and Srisailam Dam. Pakhal Lake recorded the astir unsocial bacterial compositions, portion Pulicat and Chilika Lakes shared 568 bacterial types.
Five of the 8 astir abundant genera belonged to Cyanobacteria, with Chilika Lake and Nagarjunasagar showing higher Cyanobacterial blooms, signalling eutrophication risks — overly enriched with nitrogen and phosphorous.
“These findings amusement the ecological heterogeneity of Eastern Ghats providing a important baseline for freshwater conservation and biology monitoring successful the region,” said Dr. Umapathy, adding that extortion status, waterbody size, and physiochemical heterogeneity signifier microbial communities. Co-authors see Manisha Ray, Neeldeep Ganguly, and Abhijeet Mondal.
