Response of Aquatic Bacterial Communities to Hydraulic Fracturing in Northwestern Pennsylvania: A Five-Year Study.

ABSTRACT: Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing extraction procedures have become increasingly present in Pennsylvania where the Marcellus Shale play is largely located. The potential for long-term environmental impacts to nearby headwater stream ecosystems and aquatic bacterial assemblages is still incompletely understood. Here, we perform high-throughput sequencing of the 16 S rRNA gene to characterize the bacterial community structure of water, sediment, and other environmental samples (n = 189) from 31 headwater stream sites exhibiting different histories of fracking activity in northwestern Pennsylvania over five years (2012-2016). Stream pH was identified as a main driver of bacterial changes within the streams and fracking activity acted as an environmental selector for certain members

SUBMITTER: Ulrich N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5890257 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature