Sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) in the Yangtze Estuary sediments: Abundance, distribution and implications for the bioavailibility of metals

Abstract Ubiquitous in the aquatic environment, sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) are considered one of the dominant microorganisms involved in the degradation of sulphate. This study focused on the spatial and temporal distributions of SRB in the Scirpus triquter rhizosphere sediments with a comparison to non-rhizosphere sediments and evaluated the implication of SRB to the bioavailability of metals in the Yangtze Estuary. The results showed that taking dsr B as the target gene, SRB abundances in rhizosphere sediments were significantly higher than those in non-rhizosphere sediments ( P