Factors affecting microbial community composition in Split Lake, MB, Canada

Split Lake’s summer 2024 microbiota forms six distinct microbial clusters, with turbidity and dissolved oxygen linked to different aquatic regimes within the lake.

• Why it matters: The Churchill River Diversion has continued to shape environmental processes decades later, but baseline microbial community structure and its environmental drivers in Split Lake remain unclear.
• What they did: Using 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding, the study sampled 14 Split Lake sites and 2 Assean Lake sites in summer 2024, alongside measurements of temperature, pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, and cyanotoxin levels.
• The result: Predominant taxa included Actinobacteria hgcI clade and Cyanobium, and Microcystin concentrations stayed below the Maximum Acceptable Concentration (MAC) for Canadian federal drinking water standards.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.