Interactions between river bed morphology, water chemistry and microbial diversity and its impact on pollutant biodegradation

沃里克的工作表明，河流沉积物床的形状，如颗粒的粗糙度和涟漪高度，对示踪剂的行为有重大影响，但对化学污染物的命运的影响仍有待阐明。此外，在许多发展中国家，未经处理的废水通常直接排入地表水，并伴随着高水平的悬浮固体和生化需氧量。然而，直接排放条件对化学污染物生物降解的影响尚不清楚。学生将与微生物学家，土木工程师和环境建模人员合作，阐明床型特征对栖息在沉积物表面生物膜的微生物群落的多样性和污染物降解潜力的影响，以及直接排放情景影响床型，微生物群落组成和污染物生物降解速率之间相互作用的方式。以下假设将被测试：1。河流沉积物中化学污染物的分布模式由床型2决定。床型控制微生物群落结构和多样性3.床形影响分解代谢群落的发育和生物降解速率4。直接排放条件影响河床微生物群落和生物降解过程的建立在工作的实验阶段之后，学生将在联合利华花费六个月的时间来开发方法，将结果纳入发达国家和发展中国家的一般暴露建模框架。该奖学金提供微生物学、分子生物学、环境水力学和建模方面的跨学科培训。工业合作伙伴将提供资金，以建立微型水槽实验系统和使用尖端技术，包括高通量测序，以评估微生物多样性。此外，还将为学生提供资金，供其参加定期的国家和国际会议，并在联合利华接受为期6个月的接触建模和环境风险评估培训。

Work at Warwick has demonstrated that river sediment bed-form, such as particle courseness and ripple height, has a major influence on the behaviour of tracers, but the implications for the fate of chemical pollutants remain to be elucidated. Furthermore, in many developing countries, untreated waste water is routinely discharged directly into surface water, and is associated with high levels of suspended solids and biochemical oxygen demand. However the implications of direct discharge conditions for the biodegradation of chemical pollutants is not known. The student will work with microbiologists, civil engineers and environmental modellers to elucidate the effect of bed-form characteristics on the diversity and pollutant degrading potential of microbial communities inhabiting biofilms at the sediment surface, and the way in which direct discharge scenarios affect interactions between bed-form, microbial community composition and pollutant biodegradation rates. The following hypotheses will be tested: 1. Chemical pollutant distribution patterns within river sediment are determined by bed-form 2. Bed-form controls microbial community structure and diversity 3. Bed-form affects the development of catabolic communities and biodegradation rates 4. Direct discharge conditions affect establishment of river-bed microbial communities and biodegradation processes Following the experimental phase of the work the student will spend six months at Unilever to develop approaches to incorporate the results into general exposure modelling frameworks for developed and developing countries. The studentship provides inter-disciplinary training in microbiology, molecular biology, environmental hydraulics and modelling. The industrial partner will provide funding to enable establishment of micro-flume experimental systems and the use of cutting edge techniques, including high throughput sequencing to assess microbial diversity. Furthermore funds will be made available for the student to attend regular national and international conferences and to spend 6 months at Unilever for training in exposure modelling and environmental risk assessment.