Monitoreo de las comunidades microbianas de la cuenca del río Cutuchi utilizando metabarcoding 16S rRNA e indicadores microbianos tradicionales

Abstract

Water is an essential natural resource for life, human development and biodiversity conservation. In Ecuador, 83 percent of the population has access to drinking water, and in rural areas only 53.9 percent. Due to the difficulty of obtaining this resource, a large part of this population opts for river water for domestic activities, triggering gastrointestinal diseases. In this context, Cutuchi river are used in agricultural activities, however, they have presented worrying levels of pollution due to the discharge of untreated domestic and industrial water. In such a way that, the present study was based on the monitoring of the microbial communities of the Cutuchi river using 16S rRNA metabarcoding and traditional microbial indicators. The research line corresponds to Microbiology and Biotechnology. The results obtained showed that, in six of the seven points sampled, the densities were higher than 4 log10 CFU·100 mL at -1 for total coliforms, E. coli and somatic coliphages. A high concentration of fecal indicators resistant to tetracycline and ceftriaxone was detected. Metabarcoding 16S rRNA classified the microbial abundance into 9 phyla and 36 major bacterial species. The values obtained detail the presence of fecal bacteria typical of the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals, revealing a degradation in the water quality of the Cutuchi river. This study could be used as a baseline for the evaluation of the efficiency of the treatment plants, from the point of view of microbial populations in waters impacted by residual discharges.