Soil bacteria and fungi on tropical mountainsides: Joint effects of weathering, climate, and chemical factors.

Contemporary environmental factors such as temperature and pH are generally identified as primary influences on microbial diversity, while the role of geological processes remain understudied. Here, we investigated the diversity and community composition of bacteria and fungi along an elevational gradient from703 to 4514 m on Mt. Kilimanjaro, East Africa.

Acidic proteomes are linked to microbial alkaline preference in African lakes.

Microbial amino acid composition (AA) reflects adaptive strategies of cellular and molecular regulations such as a high proportion of acidic AAs, including glutamic and aspartic acids in alkaliphiles. It remains understudied how microbial AA content is linked to their pH adaptation especially in natural environments. Here we examined prokaryotic communities and their AA composition of genes with metagenomics for 39 water and sediments of East African lakes along a gradient of pH spanning from 7.

Microbial nitrogen nutrition links to dissolved organic matter properties in East African lakes.

East African lakes, especially soda lakes, are home habitats for massive numbers of wildlife such as flamingos, mammals, and fishes. These lakes are known for their high primary production due to local high temperatures, light intensities, and alkalinity (inorganic carbon). However, these lakes, normally within remote areas, receive low nutrient inputs.

Biotic and abiotic factors interplay in structuring the dynamics of microbial co-occurrence patterns in tropical mountainsides.

Ecological interactions are important for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Particularly in stream biofilms, little is known about the distributional patterns of different taxonomic groups and their potential interactions along elevational gradients. Here, we investigated the bacterial and fungal community structures of stream biofilms across elevational gradients on Mount Kilimanjaro, and explored patterns of their distribution, diversity, community structures, and taxa co-occurrence.

Climate and Environmental Variables Drive Stream Biofilm Bacterial and Fungal Diversity on Tropical Mountainsides.

High mountain freshwater systems are particularly sensitive to the impacts of global warming and relevant environmental changes. Microorganisms contribute substantially to biogeochemical processes, yet their distribution patterns and driving mechanism in alpine streams remain understudied. Here, we examined the bacterial and fungal community compositions in stream biofilm along the elevational gradient of 745-1874 m on Mt.

Evaluation of impact of land use and landscape metrics on surface water quality in the northeastern part along Lake Tanganyika, Africa.

As the second deepest lake in Africa, Lake Tanganyika plays an important role in supplying fish protein for the catchment's residents and is irreplaceable in global biodiversity. However, the lake's water environment is threatened by socioeconomic development and rapid population growth along the lake. This study analyzed the spatial scale effects and seasonal dependence of land use types and landscape metrics on water quality in 16 sub-basins along northeastern Lake Tanganyika at different levels of urbanization.

Sustainable nitrogen management strategies based on nitrogen flow in urban human system.

Urban nitrogen discharge has become an important factor leading to urban water environment deterioration, water crisis, and frequent air pollution. Human consumption is the driving force of nitrogen flow and the core of urban nitrogen research. Based on the process of nitrogen flow in the urban human system, combined with the relevant United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and taking Dar es Salaam as an example, we established a generic analytical framework for sustainable nitrogen management and put forward the strategies of sustainable nitrogen management in the urban human system.

Sediment organic matter properties facilitate understanding nitrogen transformation potentials in East African lakes.

East African lakes include the most productive and alkaline lake group in the world. Yet, they generally receive fewer nutrient inputs than the densely populated subtropical and temperate lakes in the northern hemisphere. In these lakes with insufficient supplies of inorganic nitrogen, the mineralization of benthic organic matter can play an important role in driving the nutrient cycle and nitrogen loss.

Community monitoring of coliform pollution in Lake Tanganyika.

Conventional water quality monitoring has been done for decades in Lake Tanganyika, under different national and international programs. However, these projects utilized monitoring approaches, which were temporally limited, labour intensive and costly. This study examines the use of citizen science to monitor the dynamics of coliform concentrations in Lake Tanganyika as a complementary method to statutory and project-focused measurements.

Assessment of urban river water pollution with urbanization in East Africa.

Anthropogenic pollution plays an important part in deteriorating the water quality of rivers all over the world, especially in urban areas of Africa where water quality monitoring is still seriously constrained by the limited test facility and capability. In this study, for evaluating the impact of urbanization on the river water quality, we investigated four typical urban rivers of Tanzania through the upper-urban-down gradient assessment approach and analyzed by water quality index (WQI) and statistical methods. The physicochemical indices monitored in these rivers revealed that the contents of those indicators of TN, TP, PO, NH, COD, and NO were accumulated significantly in the lower reaches of the cities, which indicated the life-type pollution characteristics in such urban rivers of Africa.

Wet deposition of atmospheric nitrogen contributes to nitrogen loading in the surface waters of Lake Tanganyika, East Africa: a case study of the Kigoma region.

Lake Tanganyika, an African Great Lake, is a complex tropical ecosystem that has been subjected to extreme climate-related changes in the last century, including seasonal changes in temperature and rainfall, decreased overall annual rainfall, and greater frequency of rainstorms. Atmospheric nitrogen (N) is an important component of the lake's N loading, but how long-term and seasonal changes in precipitation affect this loading still needs clarification. This study aimed to improve our understanding of the seasonal features of N deposition in the lake, by monitoring atmospheric N deposition concentrations and fluxes from March 2013 to February 2014.