Ms Judith Webber1, Louise Weaver1, Annette Bolton1, Hayden Masterton1, Prudence Gowo2, Andy Pearson1, John Hadfield4, Nicki Wilson4, Asaeli Tulagi4, Laura Buckthought5, Gina Gascoigne5, Kolt Johnson5, Murray Close1, Andy Hicks3, Michael Bates3
1ESR, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, 3Ministry for the Environment, Wellington, New Zealand, 4Waikato Regional Council, Hamilton, New Zealand, 5Auckland Regional Council, Auckland, New Zealand
Biography:
Judith works in the Environmental Microbial Solutions Group at ESR. Her research includes investigating the different communities (prokaryotes, eukaryotes and fungi) living within aquifer environments and understanding how these communities help to protect our groundwater from contaminants. Judith enjoys working with eDNA and performing bioinformatic analysis to identify the taxa present in groundwater communities and investigate their metabolic functions.
Abstract:
The bacterial and eukaryotic species that inhabit aquifer systems provide key ecological functions in groundwater ecosystems. However, the biological diversity of these communities is being altered and is potentially declining due to pressures such as nitrogen pollution, overexploitation, and climate change impacts.
ESR has been researching these biological communities and their functions to develop an ecological health index for groundwater. To date, ESR’s research has focused on alluvial and marble aquifers. To increase our knowledge of groundwater communities across New Zealand, we have recently extended our research to study two ‘uncommon’ aquifer types: coarse sand and fractured basalt.
Environmental DNA (eDNA) was extracted from aquifer samples (groundwater) and then sequenced using IIlumia-targeted sequencing to identify the bacterial and eukaryotic species. Taxa from the different aquifer types were compared, and biodiversity was assessed. We found a difference in bacterial taxa between coarse sand and fractured basalt aquifers. Proteobacteria dominated fractured basalt aquifers, while the coarse sand aquifers had higher bacterial biodiversity and percentages of Firmicutes and Crenarchaeota in some wells. The beta diversity of the bacterial assemblages varied between the two uncommon aquifer types, indicating a difference in the biodiversity of these bacterial communities.
This talk will compare and discuss other significant findings in the biodiversity of the bacterial and eukaryotic taxa found across New Zealand’s alluvial gravel, marble, coarse sand, and fractured basalt aquifers.