Hanford 300 Area Unconfined Aquifer Community

Community ID CommunityMech:000138

Ecological State PERTURBED

Environment unconfined aquifer groundwater
ENVO:01001004

A natural, contaminant-impacted groundwater microbial community from the Hanford Site 300 Area Integrated Field Research Challenge site in eastern Washington. 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing of groundwater bacteria and archaea across three well clusters and multiple depths showed strong temporal and spatial community dynamics linked to Columbia River water intrusion, depth, nitrate, uranium, and redox conditions. The community includes Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, OP3, low-abundance archaea, and functional guilds such as putative methane oxidizers, sulfur oxidizers, ammonia-oxidizing archaea, and metal reducers.

Taxonomy

Taxon	Ontology ID	Functional Roles	Abundance
Proteobacteria/Pseudomonadota	NCBITaxon:1224	PRIMARY_DEGRADER PRIMARY_PRODUCER	DOMINANT
PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO) "Proteobacteria comprised 50% of the total sequences that were retrieved."
Bacteroidetes aquifer bacteria	NCBITaxon:976	PRIMARY_DEGRADER	DOMINANT
PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO) "The next four most abundant phyla were Bacteroidetes (13%), Actinobacteria (6%), Acidobacteria (4%) and OP3 (3%)"
Actinobacteria/Actinomycetota aquifer bacteria	NCBITaxon:201174	PRIMARY_DEGRADER	DOMINANT
PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO) "Two groups of Actinobacteria (ACK-M1 and CL500-29) were not detected before intrusion, but constituted 12% of the organisms detected over the intrusion period, and comprised 38% at the highest water level"
aquifer archaea, including ammonia-oxidizing archaea	NCBITaxon:2157	PRIMARY_PRODUCER	ABUNDANT
PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO) "Archaea averaged only 2.5% of the total microbial community, with a slightly higher contribution in shallow depths (3.9+/-1.7%) than other strata (1.9+/-0.8%)"

Ecological Interactions

Taxon

Cross-feeding

Mutualism

Syntrophy

Competition

Commensalism

Niche partitioning

Colonization facilitation

Strain competition

Predation

Columbia River Intrusion Community Turnover

NICHE_PARTITIONING

Source Taxon: intrusion-associated Actinobacteria

Target Taxon: Hanford groundwater bacteria

Metabolites: nitrate (CHEBI:17632)

Biological Processes:

oxidation-reduction process (GO:0055114)

Evidence

PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO)

"The shift in community composition associated with the large dynamics in Actinobacteria ACK-M1 and other clades suggested that river water intrusion could have significant impacts on microbial community composition."
PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO)

"Here, we demonstrate that Columbia River water intrusion affects microbial community composition in the aquifer, 250 m from the shoreline."

Depth-Structured Redox Guilds

NICHE_PARTITIONING

Source Taxon: aquifer redox guild bacteria and archaea

Target Taxon: aquifer archaea, including ammonia-oxidizing archaea

Metabolites: nitrate (CHEBI:17632), uranium(VI) (CHEBI:37119)

Biological Processes:

nitrification (GO:0019329)
oxidation-reduction process (GO:0055114)

Evidence

PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO)

"we observed a higher proportion of putative ammonia-oxidizing Archaea, methane oxidizers and metal reducers."
PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO)

"Spatial and temporal patterns for several 16S rRNA gene operational taxonomic units associated with particular physiological functions (for example, methane oxidizers and metal reducers) suggests dynamic changes in fluxes of electron donors and acceptors over an annual cycle."

Environmental Factors

Factor	Value	Unit
Columbia River water intrusion	nitrate mixing signal from 0.4 mg nitrate/L river water and 25 mg nitrate/L groundwater	N/A
PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO) "River water intrusion was estimated from nitrate concentrations according to a simple mixing calculation, based upon the relative nitrate concentrations of 0.4 and 25 mg nitrate l-1 in river and ground water."
Vertical aquifer sampling depth	10 m water-table, 13 m mid-Hanford formation, and 17 m near Hanford-Ringold contact	N/A
PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO) "Each three-well cluster was completed at short (1 m) intervals within the Hanford formation: near the water table (10 m), at the middle of the Hanford formation (13 m) and near the contact with the underlying Ringold formation (17 m)."
Hanford 300 Area contaminant context	uranium and inorganic contaminants from historical nuclear materials production	N/A
PMID:22456444 - SUPPORT (IN_VIVO) "At the Hanford Site 300 Area, the unconfined subsurface aquifer is subject to intrusion of organic and inorganic contaminants from a variety of sources associated with historical nuclear materials production"