Influence of freshwater discharge on the microbial degradation processes of dissolved organic nitrogen in a subtropical estuary.

River bacterioplankton communities, influenced by watershed usage, are responsible for water purification. Bacterioplankton may be critical in the degradation of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), the major nitrogen pool in the Caloosahatchee River, Florida. We investigated how freshwater discharge influences estuarine bacterioplankton and how the freshwater-originated DON is utilized by estuarine bacterioplankton. Microcosm experiments were conducted during low and high discharge using two upstream freshwater samples: one site primarily influenced by Lake Okeechobee and the other site moderately influenced by an agricultural watershed. These freshwater samples were filtered to eliminate indigenous microbial populations, then mixed with estuarine bacterioplankton. High-throughput sequencing revealed that bacterioplankton differed between low and high discharge and were influenced by salinity. Alphaproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes dominated in low discharge while Bacteroidetes and Cyanobacteria dominated during high discharge. In the microcosm experiment, DON concentration decreased with increasing cell densities, suggesting that the DON was utilized as a carbon and nitrogen source. Band signals in denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis corresponding to Alphaproteobacteria and Actinobacteria decreased while Gammaproteobacteria increased during the 1 month incubation. This data suggests that estuarine bacterioplankton communities are influenced by variations in discharge patterns and use freshwater-originated DON as demonstrated by a shift in community structure.